APM arrives in China for summit
President Peter Mutharika and his delegation arrived in Beijing, China on Tuesday night for the Third Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac).
The President, accompanied by First Lady Gertrude Mutharika, were met on arrival at the Regent Hotel in Beijing by Cabinet ministers Emmanuel Fabiano (Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation), Henry Mussa (Trade, Industry and Tourism), Joseph Mwanamvekha (Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development) and Aggrey Masi (Natural Resources, Energy and Mining) and other Malawi Government officials.
Briefing Malawian journalists at the hotel, Fabiano said Malawi stands to benefit more from the bilateral talks the country will hold with China.
He said: “Through the bilateral talks, we expect to see a number of projects that will be negotiated and some of them implemented. As you are aware, in the first 10 years, we had five projects that were funded by the government of China some of them through concessionary loans and at least one of them as a grant.”
The Focac summit will be held from September 3 to 4 under the theme China and Africa: Towards An Even Stronger Community With a Shared Future through a Win-win Cooperation.
The forum will be attended by over 50 African countries, representatives of the African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations and several international organisations as well as the host President Xi Jinping.
Prior to the summit, Mutharika will hold bilateral talks with Xi to further strengthen economic and political cooperation and set the agenda for continued partnership between the two countries over the next decade.
The summit will be preceded by the 13th senior officials meeting (SOM) and the 7th Focac Ministerial Conference which will take place on September 1 and 2, respectively.
The summit, among others, seeks to take stock of the implementation of the Johannesburg Plan of Action (2016-2018) under which China committed $60 billion for economic and infrastructure development in Africa and to consider the 2019-2021 Beijing Plan of Action.—Malawi News Agency
