China to focus on improving livelihoods in Africa

China will focus on improving people's livelihood and reducing poverty in Africa, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said outling the Communist nation's change in strategy to reach out to the resource-rich continent where it has been engaged in large infrastrcture projects until now.
Wang said the Sino-Africa summit, which will be attended by President Xi Jinping, next month in South Africa will focus on improving people's livelihood, reducing poverty and investing in the least-developed countries and on women and children.
China will strengthen cooperation with Africa to help the continent's industrialisation, food security, public health and disease prevention, he was quoted as saying in state-run media.

Wang said China has invested over USD 30 billion in Africa, while more than 3,000 Chinese companies are operating there. China also laid over 5,000 kilometres of rail in Africa by this September.
The summit will pass a declaration and an action plan to showcase the leaders' strategic planning for future relations.
China, which made big strides in Africa with huge investments and massive trade expansion, has focussed more on high-value projects.

Articles by China's strategic writers in the local media after the recent India-Africa summit said that China can learn from India's approach of manpower training and technical support to African people.

"China can also learn from India's experiences of providing assistance to Africa" an article in the state-run Global Times said early this month advocating a "benign" competition between New Delhi and Beijing.
"India pays more attention to technical support and personnel training. China is more focused on large-scale projects and infrastructure construction. On that score, New Delhi's approach is worth to be learned by Beijing," it had said.