China and African countries are shaping a completely new trade relationship, giving African economies "a major boost", said World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region, Gobind Nankani, in Beijing on Friday.

The landmark Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation comes just at the right time to cement cooperation and dialogue between China and African countries, and is expected to "get the best out of" their economic relationships, Nankani, who is here to attend the weekend summit as an observer, told Xinhua.

"Chinese trade and investment links in Africa are giving African economies a major boost," said Nankani, adding that in the past few years the relationship between China and African countries has been growing by leaps and bounds.

World Bank statistics show that five years ago, total trade between China and Africa was US$10 billion, and it hit US$40 billion in 2005. Nankani predicts that it could be as high as US$50 billion this year.

He said that China's investment in Africa is also growing fast, already sharing 10 percent of all direct foreign investment in Africa.

A new study by the World Bank called Africa's Silk Road showed that Chinese investment in African countries are having good effect, and can also have even greater results in the future.

Nankani said African countries are benefiting from increasing Chinese investment, and will benefit more with more technological transfers from China.

He suggests African countries take further measures to lower business cost and improve investment environment to attract more funds.

Talking about the future economic cooperation between China and Africa, particularly in the textile industry, Nankani said they can set up joint ventures to take advantage of both African technicians' design capacity and Chinese workers' skills.

He said Chinese firms can have more processing done in African countries before the exports get to China, suggesting that China reduce tariff on processed goods from Africa to benefit more African countries.

Currently, Chinese investment in Africa has been spread into the fields of natural resources, infrastructure, construction, textile, transport and power.

Nankani said the scope of trade and investment between China and African countries has just begun to expand, and there's room to do even more.

"China has benefited in the last 20 or 30 years from direct foreign investment from abroad, from trading with the US market. I think African countries have that opportunity in their relationship with China which is the fastest growing economy in the world today, " said Nankani.

In addition, Nankani said that China's debt cancellation has been very helpful to African countries, and China has also shown away out of poverty to the rest of the world, especially to African countries which still have a total number of 300 million poor people.

(Xinhua News Agency November 4, 2006)