Three robbery-hijackings in a week have put South Africa’s Chinese community on edge. The latest incident occurred last week in the Humewood area of Port Elizabeth where like the previous two incidents an ethnic Chinese driver was forced off the road and robbed at gunpoint. The assailants also forced the victims to use their mobile phones to transfer funds to make an online transfer to their accounts. South African police are now warning people in the Chinese community to avoid carrying large sums of cash and even to reduce the amounts of money available in standard banks accounts. (SOUTH AFRICA DAILY — in Chinese)
Chinese President Xi Jinping is beginning to rally leaders from other developing countries to join his new “Global Development Initiative” (GDI) which he announced in his UN General Assembly speech last month. President Xi raised the issue on Wednesday in separate phone calls with Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. The GDI is a new 8-point policy framework that will guide China’s engagement with developing countries. (XINHUA)
The President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Jin Liqun, said the bank will follow China’s lead and discontinue financing coal projects as of next year. Currently, the bank has approved funding for 29 energy projects around the world, none involving coal, said Jin, who’s in the UAE this week for the AIIB’s annual meeting. By 2030, he added, the bank plans to approve $50 billion for climate-related projects. (GLOBAL TIMES)
The current congestion in the global supply chain is finally starting to benefit shippers in East Africa who are now starting to see lower prices for both vessels and containers. With so much congestion in both U.S. and European ports, traders are now re-directing vessels/containers to go from China to ports in Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa. The cost of shipping a container has dropped 29% over the past two weeks, according to the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa. (THE STAR)
Botswana joins a growing list of African countries exporting iron ore to China. The country’s first iron ore mine, Ikongwe, delivered its inaugural shipment to China last month, according to company officials. This marks an important milestone for Botswana as it moves to diversify its exports beyond diamonds. It’s also significant for China in light of Beijing’s desire to lessen its dependence on Australian iron ore. (REUTERS)
China’s ambassador to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun refuted speculation on Tuesday that a three-year-old $2.5 billion currency swap agreement between the two countries would be terminated due to a lack of interest. Instead, Cui said “the framework would be expanded” by both the Chinese and Nigerian central banks. There’ve been a number of reports in the Nigerian media over the past month that declared the swap agreement a failure due to bureaucracy on the Nigerian side and resistance from Chinese traders who preferred to settle transactions in USD. (THIS DAY)
Bahrain will become the second GCC country after the UAE to approve the use of the Chinese-made Sinopharm COVID vaccine on children as young as three years old. The Ministry of Health issued the new guidelines on Tuesday that also included approval of the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine on kids aged 5-11. With an average of just 65 infections a day, the COVID situation in the Kingdom is largely under control. (AL-MONITOR)
China echoed calls from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) for all international sanctions against Zimbabwe to be removed. Beijing and the SADC both issued their appeals to coincide with the third “Anti-Sanctions Day.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman also singled out the U.S. for what he described as “illegal sanctions” against Zimbabwe. (@SADC_NEWS)
The Nigerian government is demanding that Sinohydro and other Chinese contractors working on the $1.3 billion Zungeru hydroelectric plant finish on time at the end of the year. Minister of Power Abubakar Aliyu called representatives of the construction companies to his office late last week to make sure they were clear about the need to complete the project on time. When complete, the 700-megawatt power plant will generate an estimated 10% of Nigeria’s electricity. (LEADERSHIP)
DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi appointed veteran diplomat François Nkuna Balumuene as Kinshasa’s next ambassador to China. Previously, Balumuene served as ambassador to both the United States and India. He’s been in the Congolese foreign service for more than 30 years. Along with Balumuene, President Tshisekedi announced five other ambassadorial appointments: to France, Ivory Coast, UAE, Belgium, and the United Nations. (MEDIA CONGO)
The Secretariat of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced plans to create a working group to discuss economic development and integration between the two sides. The two sides, according to the MoU, will discuss intellectual property rights, customs policies, and digital trade among other areas. This new working group is an evolution of the ideas that have been coming from Chinese think tanks over the past two years about integrating AfCFTA with the Belt and Road. (GHANA NEWS AGENCY)
The $2.5 billion/15 billion RMB currency swap deal between China and Nigeria has not lived up to expectations as most Nigerian traders avoided using RMB to settle transactions and stuck with USD. The 2018 deal was supposed to make it easier for both Chinese and Nigerian traders to interact with one another but bureaucracy and conversion bottlenecks slowed the utilization by Nigerians, while Chinese businesses preferred to deal in dollars. (LEADERSHIP)
