Wu Peng, the Director-General for African Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated today, Tuesday, that African countries want China to shift its focus from building infrastructure on the continent to local manufacturing. He added during a briefing on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in South Africa, "African integration is already increasing, and many African countries have asked China to consider changing our focus." Wu mentioned that "urgent" discussions on "emergency issues" cannot wait until the next session of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, which is a regular meeting between Chinese and African ministers scheduled for next year. He noted that Chinese companies' investments in Africa, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, will increase. He added, "Regardless of what happens with the global economy or the Chinese economy, the trend in the medium to long term is that Chinese companies are willing to take some risks to go to Africa."
**Chinese Loans in Billions**
Boston University reported that Chinese banks, mostly state-owned, agreed to lend African countries $160 billion between 2000 and 2020. Loan commitments surged after Xi launched the "Belt and Road Initiative" in 2013 to finance infrastructure in developing countries, but then plummeted from a peak of $28.4 billion in 2016 to $1.9 billion in 2020.
