Li speaks to CCTV News about China-African ties
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E-mail CNTV, May 12, 2014
Let's get the full interview now with Li Keqiang in our headquarters in Nairobi. The Premier spoke to CCTV News about the close cooperation between China and Africa, and how he especially values the importance of objective media coverage on African affairs.
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Li speaks to CCTV News about China-African ties |
I first and foremost felt strongly the friendship from you and your colleagues towards China and the Chinese people. I am happy to give this interview at CCTV-Africa as I am about to conclude my trip to the four African countries. Talking about my impression of Africa, I believe Africa is a continent on the rise.
Throughout my trip to Africa, I've visited Ethiopia, Nigeria, Anglo and Kenya, as well as the AU headquarters. My impression is that Africa is an important pole on the international political stage. It's an important driver of global economic recovery and growth. The Africa civilization is representative of the diversity of the entire human civilization.
I've had extensive discussions with leaders of the African countries I visited. It's my strong impression that those leaders all share the commitment of upholding regional security and stability, resolving issues through peaceful means and creating a favourable environment for the development of their countries. They also share the strong will for faster development of infrastructure in their countries. I believe rapid development of infrastructure symbolizes the rapid rise of developing countries.
The African people have also left a deep impression on my mind. I am deeply impressed by their strong friendly sentiment towards the Chinese people. I am happy to see that many Chinese companies have come to make investment in African countries, and they have hired a lot of local employees. My strong memory is when I visited the eastern industrial park in Ethiopia. We went to a local manufacturing factory, and I saw some local young people working there, making shoes. I greeted one of the young local employees and asked him a couple of questions. He was very polite. He looked up and answered my questions. But at the same time, he didn't put down the work at his hand. I was impressed by his spirits of hard working, and I believe this diligence and wisdom of the African people will also ensure that Africa will be a land of promise, a land holding tremendous potential.
Actually I think you have raised two questions. I would be happy to address them one by one. First of all, we have heard of such media report recently that the Chinese economy will soon overtake that of the United States and become the largest in the world. However, in our view, the methodology that's being used to come to such conclusion has not been extensively accepted by the majority of the countries in the world. Nor is this methodology a reasonable one that has been put into use for a long time.
According to well accepted methods of calculation, China's total size of economy now is about nine trillion US dollars, making it the second largest in the world. But there's still a gap as much as 6 trillion US dollars between China and the largest economy in the world. China's per capita GDP is just a bit over 6,000 US dollars, which is behind about 80 countries in the world. And by the standards of the World Bank, we still have 200 million people living in poverty. So talking about China becoming the No. 1 economy in the world, the method that certain people used is the PPP, that's purchasing power parity, which is not extensively accepted by many people. And I don't think this PPP calculate methodology will be able to accurately reflect the difference in the quality of the goods and services consumed by people in developing countries and developed countries. So if China is going to achieve modernization and achieve our goal of turning our country into a medium developed country by the middle of next century, we still have a very long way to go.
It's true that China is still a developing country. Yet after all, China is the biggest developing country in the world, and China has accumulated over the years certain level of comprehensive national strength. Throughout the years, China has been doing what it can to provide assistance to African countries. And China will continue to do so in the future. We believe China and Africa are each other's important development opportunities. Our combined population account for about one quarter of the world's total. Africa enjoys tremendous potential for growth, and China has rich production capacity. The African Unions and China's production capacity are at very similar levels of industrial development. And we complement each other. We believe the relationship between China and Africa is one of closely knit common destiny, one of common development, and one of mutual learning for each other's civilization and culture. Common progress of China and Africa will change the international political and economic landscapes, will make the voice of all developing countries better heard in the world, and will better safeguard the vital interests for all developing countries. We believe our common development is conducive to balanced and sustainable development of global peace and security, the sustainable development of the world and global peace and security.
Ours is a time-honoured friendship between China and Africa. China shows sympathy and support for African countries' struggles for the national independence, in providing assistance to Africa. What we hope to see is not for the African countries to become highly dependent on Chinese assistance. Rather we want to help African countries to enhance their own ability, for self-development, to prove to the whole world that China and Africa, one being the largest developing economy in the world and the other being the continent home to the largest number of developing countries with capacity to achieve self-generated development and pursue the path of development that they chose for themselves.
Looking ahead, I believe our cooperation need to be continuously based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. We hope to see further growth in manufactory sector in African countries in particular labouring intensive industry to generate more local jobs especially for local young people. During my visit to African countries, we need to work together to enhance cooperation in infrastructure development that will greatly boost mobility and market development in Africa and also facilitate relocation of appropriate manufactory industries to African countries to help African countries enhance their capacity for the processing of the raw materials and agriculture products. And in the end, boost African exports to the global markets. We seek to enhance African capacity to achieve self-generated development and opportunities from China and in this way China and Africa work jointly to explore the international market and to truly build relationship in their pursuit of common development.
Today I'm taking this special trip to CCTV Africa because this is the first overseas station established by CCTV and more importantly this is the station where there is coverage of the activities of our African brothers and sisters with whom we enjoy a very deep friendship. I'm happy to see during the visit there's very joyful cooperation between Chinese and African employees.
I'm happy to learn that CCTV Africa embraces the vision of seeing Africa from an African perspective and reporting Africa from the viewpoint of Africa, i.e. we want to have objective and fair coverage of whatever is taking place on the African continent. China and African countries are all developing countries. Honestly speaking, we're still at a disadvantageous position in terms of our voice on the international stage. We both hope that there will be objective and fair coverage of us and there has been good cooperation between media of our two sides and our media people have been speaking with one voice to the outside world. We believe everybody is to speak with one voice and developing countries need to speak to differentiate their lives and interests. I believe our cooperation shows that Africa and all developing countries are communicating objective and fair messages to the outside world.
I've had the opportunity to watch some brief episodes of the wildebeest migration program that you made and I believe that shows we have had a cooperation not just in political, economic and culture spheres, but also in the fields of conserving biodiversity. I believe both China and Africa represent great civilizations and we're working jointly to protect our common home. We share common ideas and ideals and they represent our common contribution to mankind. Last but not least, I want to express a hope to CCTV Africa, that is I hope you will make more such production of these programs, covering Africa in the future, and also let me give you my promise here, that is when I go back home, I will certainly make time to completely watch this spectacular program you made about the animal migration in Africa. It truly reflects the great biodiversity and also the colourful views in the migration.
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