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China, The Post have a close relationship - Ambassador Li

China, The Post have a close relationship - Ambassador Li
By Chibaula Silwamba
Tue 29 Dec. 2009, 04:00 CAT

CHINA and The Post have a close relationship, Chinese ambassador to Zambia Li Qiangmin has said.

And ambassador Li said Chinese investors have invested more than US $15 million in the agriculture sector in Zambia. In an interview to review Chinese ties with Zambia this year, Ambassador Li appreciated the support that The Post and other media outlets in Zambia were giving his mission.

“We have had very close relationship with the Zambian media, particularly The Post newspaper. I found out in the last few months that our relations and cooperation is good and has improved a lot,” Ambassador Li said.

Ambassador Li urged Zambia to improve infrastructure leading to tourist destinations to woo more tourists to Zambia, which he said was centrally located in Southern Africa.

“You need to improve your transportation and tourist infrastructure. In some places, the hotels are not enough. For example, South Luangwa, from my understanding is one of the best safaris in Africa.

If you have three flights daily and good facilities of hotel and food, I can guarantee you a lot of people would be going there,” Ambassador Li said. “Most people like to fly to Nairobi and Johannesburg because of good direct flights. From geological point of view, Zambia is a fantastic place. It's central of southern region of Africa.

You should be building your capacity to attract more and more international flights to come here. Zambia can be the regional centre for transportation to distribute passengers to all destinations. For example, if you have direct flights from Lusaka to each of your eight neighbouring countries, each of them would take about two hours flight which is very convenient. You have to improve that.”

Ambassador Li said his mission was encouraging more Chinese firms to invest in agriculture in Zambia.

“Last year Chinese investors invested more than US $15 million in the agriculture sector. We are very interested to buy or invest in Serenje farming block. We will also buy small farms in Kitwe, Ndola, Kabwe, Western Province and Lusaka,” Ambassador Li said.

“At the moment there are more than 30 Chinese farms in Zambia. More Zambian people like vegetables from Chinese owned farms.”

He also said some Chinese firms invested in telecommunications by providing services to Zamtel, MTN and Zain.

“We are also looking at the possibility to ask the Chinese government to offer more concession loans to buy mobile hospitals to improve the health care condition for the people particularly the rural people,” Ambassador Li said.

“Zambia and China have very long relationship even before Zambia became independent; we supported Zambia in the freedom fight.

As soon as Zambia became independent China was one of the first countries to recognise Zambia and we established our official diplomatic relationship. We always support each other in international affairs as well as Zambia's economic and social development, particularly in the last year.”

He said in 2008/2009 China and Zambia faced a serious problem of global financial crisis.

“China is one of the strongest supporters for Zambia; this is my understanding because your government asked me to help Zambia in August or September 2008 when the global financial crisis seriously negatively affected Zambia's economic development,” Ambassador Li said.

“Some main companies shut down. As you know, Zambia is a country of many products and largely depends on your mining productions for your GDP. We have good cooperation with the Zambian government. Zambia is still a good place for investment.”

Labels: AMBASSADOR, CHINA, LI QIANGMIN, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 4:31 AM