On April 9, the 1^st Allied Work Group Conference for Cross-border and Cross-regional Infrastructure Construction Cooperation in Africa organized by China’s Ministry of Commerce and African Union (AU) Commission was held in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. In the conference, two sides reached a consensus by signing China’s Ministry of Commerce and AU Commission’s Action Plan for Cross-border and Cross-regional Infrastructure Construction Cooperation in Africa.

   Assistant Minister of Commerce Zhang Xiangchen and AU Commission Deputy Chairperson Mwencha jointly presided the conference. Zhang Xiangchen said African economy has been developing rapidly in recent years and has a huge development potential, while infrastructure construction has been the bottleneck and obstacle for Africa’s development. China and African countries, especially African Union, are intended to enhance the infrastructure construction cooperation. Chinese infrastructure construction enterprises have rich experience in transportation, energy, information, communication and other industries and performed some infrastructure construction projects in Africa. Therefore, China has the experience and ability to make contributions to Africa’s infrastructure construction.

   Mwencha said that infrastructure has an important significance in Africa’s development and AU Commission is willing to work with China to strengthen the infrastructure construction cooperation. China’s Ministry of Commerce and AU Commission’s Action Plan for Cross-border and Cross-regional Infrastructure Construction Cooperation in Africa specifies the bilateral responsibilities and hopes that two sides speed up Africa’s infrastructure construction by discussing the mechanism of allied work group for infrastructure construction cooperation and supervising the implementation of action plan. (Xinhua, reported by Liang Shanggang)