Algeria called, on Thursday in Beijing, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Mr. Ahmed Attaf, to maintain the positive pace in the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” initiative to respond optimally to the needs and priorities of African countries.
In a speech delivered during the session devoted to cooperation under the “Belt and Road” initiative, as part of the work of the 4th China-Africa Summit, in which he participated as a representative of the President of the Republic, Mr. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Mr. Attaf indicated that this initiative “represents today one of the founding and structuring facets of the fruitful cooperation and promising partnership between Africa and China”, welcoming “the absolute unanimity of African countries and their collective adherence to this initiative, through the signing of memoranda of understanding with China for its implementation and the achievement of its objectives”.
The minister also mentioned several key factors behind Africa’s positive interaction with China, including “the fact that China-Africa relations are based on a common historical legacy of friendship, solidarity, and understanding, rooted in China’s support for the struggles of African peoples for liberation and freedom from domination and colonization, as well as the positions of African countries, which, in turn, have supported China’s legitimate return to the United Nations and upheld the principle of a unified China.”
The Belt and Road Initiative, the minister added, “is based on the principles of a balanced partnership, shared interests, mutual respect, and sovereign equality between states, far from political bidding wars and provocative bargaining to benefit from development aid and curry favor.”
The third factor is that the goals and objectives of this initiative “are in line with those of the African Development Agenda 2063, in particular the aspiration of our continent to build a solid, interconnected and high-quality infrastructure, capable of contributing to the realization of the strategic orientation towards continental unity and integration,” he added.
“The encouraging results of the Sino-African partnership, under the joint construction of the ‘Belt and Road’, are to be welcomed,” said the minister, recalling, in this regard, the projects implemented within the framework of strengthening the interconnection of Africa infrastructure, in particular the construction of railways, the creation of ports and airports and the opening of new land, sea and air transport lines.
Calling for the continuation and intensification of the implementation of these projects, he noted that “the lack of infrastructure in our continent reduces growth by 2% and decreases productivity by almost 40%.”
Also, Algeria “insists on the need to maintain this positive pace in the joint construction of the Belt and Road initiative to respond optimally to the needs and priorities of African countries,” the minister continued.
And they are adding that Algeria “underlines the imperative to focus efforts on the means of meeting our greatest challenge, that of financing, through greater complementarity between African financial institutions and Chinese bodies concerned by the Belt and Road projects”, maintaining that such efforts “are intended to contribute to reducing the financial gap for the construction of the necessary infrastructure in Africa, estimated at between 130 and 170 billion USD per year”.
He also stressed Algeria’s commitment, since its accession to the “Belt and Road” initiative, to “strengthening its partnership with China in the implementation of priority infrastructure projects”, adding that it “wishes that this cooperation extends to supporting Algerian efforts to strengthen regional integration, by weaving networks of interconnection, exchange, and interaction at all levels in our regional areas of belonging”.
According to Mr. Attaf, the goal of consolidating the relationship that led to the creation of the “Belt and Road” initiative represents “the essence of the policy advocated by Algeria through several structuring projects of regional dimension, aiming at the interconnection of national infrastructures with the countries of our neighborhood and our African depth: roads, railways, electricity and gas networks, optical fiber and logistics platforms of free trade zones.”
The minister concluded his speech by reaffirming Algeria’s support and commitment to the Africa-China partnership and its aspiration to achieve more achievements on the path of this “privileged and promising” partnership.
