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Chinese President Xi: China to Donate 1 bln COVID Vaccines to Africa

Chinese President Xi: China to Donate 1 bln COVID Vaccines to Africa
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By Staff, Agencies

China has promised to donate a billion coronavirus vaccines, advance billions of dollars for African trade and infrastructure, and write off interest-free loans to African countries to help the continent heal from the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking via a video link from Beijing during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation [FOCAC], Chinese President Xi Jinping said China would supply a billion doses to help Africa vaccinate 60 per cent of its population by next year.

Of those, 600 million would be via donations and the rest would be produced jointly by African countries and Chinese companies.

In addition, China would send medical teams to help the continent deal with the pandemic, Xi said, to the forum, which is being hosted by Senegal.

“China will undertake 10 medical and health projects for African countries and send 1,500 medical personnel to Africa,” Xi said.

Most countries in Africa have not vaccinated their citizens. The World Health Organization says while many high-income countries reported more than 60 per cent vaccine coverage, just over 7 per cent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated – despite a recent rise in shipments to the continent.

The low coverage was likely because of limited vaccination services, especially in rural areas, as well as vaccine hesitancy, the WHO said.

China had provided more than 1.7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of November 12 to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the African Union Commission.

Xi said Beijing would pump US$10 billion into African financial institutions for onward lending to small and medium enterprises. He promised to extend another US$10 billion of its International Monetary Fund allocation of special drawing rights, which would help stabilize foreign exchange reserves.

Further, China will write-off interest-free loans due this year, to help the economies that had been ravaged by the pandemic. Last year, China also promised to write off interest-free loans due at the end of 2020.

Beijing pledged US$60 billion to finance Africa’s infrastructure at the forum in Johannesburg in 2015, and a similar amount when the gathering was held in the Chinese capital in 2018. But in the past few years, Chinese lenders, including the policy banks – Exim Bank of China and China Development Bank – have become more cautious and are now demanding bankable feasibility studies amid debt distress in the continent.

However, the Dakar meeting is happening amid turbulence caused by COVID-19 which has hit African countries hard.

Besides seeking more money for projects, African countries are pushing to grow exports of agricultural products into China.

Xi said China would encourage more imports of African agricultural products, and increase the range of zero-tariff goods, aiming for US$300 billion of total imports from Africa in the next three years.

China would also advance US$10 billion of trade financing to support African exports into China. He said the country would also advance another US$10 billion to promote agriculture in Africa, send 500 experts and establish China-Africa joint agro-technology centers and demonstration villages.

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