杂志汇中国与非洲

China and African countries pushed forward local-level cooperation at the Third Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation held in Beijing on May 8. Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan said China is ready to contribute to Africa’s development with its own development.

He said that local governments’ exchanges and cooperation on poverty alleviation and sustainable development will help promote the comprehensive strategic cooperation partnerships between China and African nations.

Wang said that China will unswervingly implement the strategy of opening up to the outside world for mutual benefits.

He noted that China is still a developing country and faces the principal contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. It is an arduous task and a big challenge for China to win the battle of poverty alleviation and achieve an all-round well-off society.

Nigerien Prime Minister Brigi Rafini said that Niger appreciates China’s support and hopes to learn from China’s experiences on development.

The forum was cohosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa.Tan Jian

Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia

AfricaReducing Greenhouse Gases

The United Nation Environment Program (UNEP) Africa Office has applauded Africa’s 54 countries for their efforts to phase out CFCs and Halons among others, which were some of the most widely used ozone-depleting substances.

Frank Turyatunga, Deputy Regional Director, Africa Office, UNEP, said the total emissions that will ultimately be avoided as a result of phasing-down CFCs will depend on the choices countries make about key issues.

Africa’s efforts to phase out CFCs and Halons followed the 16th Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment held in Libreville, Gabon in June last year, which welcomed the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

TanzaniaMalaria’s Decline

The prevalence of the malaria disease in Tanzania has gone down by almost half in the past three years, a senior official said. According to the latest research figures on the disease released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the prevalence rate dropped from 14.4 percent in 2015 to 7.3 percent in 2017.

The 2017 Tanzania Malaria Indicator Survey report incorporates assessments of the level of ownership and use of mosquito nets in the country and coverage of intermittent preventive malaria treatments for pregnant women.

It also identifies various treatment practices including the use of specific anti-malarial medications for children aged 6 to 59 months and measures the prevalence of the disease along with anemia among children of this age group.

SomaliaFoster Peace

The Somali Government and the African Union Mission in Somali plan to establish community radio stations in three regional states in June as part of efforts to foster peace in the country, officials said.

The UN Support Office in Somalia, which is supporting the project, said that the community radio stations will be established in HirShabelle, Jubbaland and South West.

It is hoped that the community stations will help inform and alter attitudes by providing ordinary people with a voice, thereby empowering them through targeted messaging on issues such as peace-building, countering violent extremism, constitutional review, the 2020 elections and federalism.

ChinaQuake Prediction

China has started construction of a monitoring network in seismically active regions in an effort to explore earthquake prediction, researchers said on May 7. According to the Institute of Care-life, a disaster-reduction lab based in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, 2,000 monitoring stations will be built in two years in Sichuan and Yunnan, two quake-prone provinces in southwest China.

Sensors installed at monitoring stations will collect data on underground stress and energy 8 to 20 km below the surface of the earth, providing researchers with potential insights into earthquake forecasting, said Wang Tun, Director of the Institute of Care-life.

The objective of the project is to successfully predict earthquakes whose epicenters are less than 20 km deep, researchers said.

Numbers

$3.42 bln

donations raised by China Charity Federation in 2017

$20,409

average annual salary in China’s IT sector in 2017

0.7%

decrease of unemployment rate in Egypt in Q1

60%

estimated portion of Africa’s population under 25 years old by 2050

52.6%

year-on-year decrease of malaria deaths in Ghana in 2017

Morocco

Car Exports

ISTOCK Morocco expects auto industry exports to reach an annual $20 billion by 2025, a Moroccan minister said recently. The car industry is already the first industrial exporting sector with more than $7 billion turnover in 2017, said Moulay Hafid El Alamy, Moroccan Minister of Industry, Investment, Trade and Digital Economy. He stressed that the government is on track to achieve its goal of reaching a turnover of $10 billion in auto industry export by 2020. The sector created some 83,845 jobs, which represents 93 percent of the goal set for 2020. Morocco aims to lift the overall industrial component of gross domestic product to 20 percent by 2020.

Media Watch

Highly Expected China Economic Weekly May 14

The news that Chinese hitech giant Xiaomi recently submitted its initial public offering (IPO) application to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Market with its dualclass shareholding structure has caused a stir among both current Xiaomi employees and the general public. The former are thrilled by the possibility of becoming millionaires overnight, whereas the general public take pride in such an epic undertaking.

The company could become the largest IPO on the Hong Kong exchange market and the second largest IPO globally after Chinese Internet giant Alibaba. The magazine looks at Xiaomi’s eight-year history of expansion and notes that the hi-tech company is one of a few Chinese companies who blazed a new business model besides an individual business miracle.

Turning Forest into ProfitOriental Outlook May 10

The forest area in the world reduced from 4.128 billion hectares in 1990 to 3.999 billion hectares in 2015, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. In contrast, China’s forest coverage rate has increased by 10 percent since 1999 when China started the program of returning farmland to forest. The increasing forest coverage rate shows the Chinese Government giving top priority to environmental protection. Thanks to the efforts, China’s vast central and western regions have not only grown greener, but also found new ways to boost their economies. Trees have become valuable resources dubbed “green gold” for impoverished populations in these regions. The Value of Opening upSouth Reviews April 25

The importance of opening up has been valued as early as the Industrial Revolution. China has developed greatly through reform and opening up. The country is able to make the most of external dynamics, and together with its own economic endowments such as human resources, wisdom and a huge domestic market, manages to sustain growth that has lasted for four decades. Despite some challenges, the value of opening up is still cherished by the majority of the people.

As the second largest economy in the world, China is embarking on a new phase of reform and opening up and sees the process not simply as a matter of expediency, but a major strategy in its revitalization.

Better Management of Scrapped Cars

Legal Daily May 4

The number of scrapped cars in China is expected to hit 9.07 million in 2018. Less than 30 percent are sent to formal companies for disassembly, with most ending up on the black market and back on the roads after renovation, increasing the incidence of traffic accidents.

Legal car recycling businesses are mired in economic difficulty, unable to benefit from old auto parts, while government subsidies remain insufficient or absent altogether. It is, therefore, necessary to raise the remuneration for car owners who take their cars to formal car recycling agencies, while these companies should also be better subsidized. In addition, to keep China’s roads safe, car recycling companies involved in illegal business must be severely punished.

Kenya

Revitalizing Innovations

Kenya said that it has set aside $30 million in the next financial year to support cutting-edge research and innovations.

Cabinet Secretary for Education Amina Mohamed said the new funding will stimulate research and innovations in agriculture, health, manufacturing, housing and environmental conservation.

Mohamed said the government will soon earmark 2 percent of its GDP to support research and innovations in line with a target set out by other African Union member states.

She noted that Kenya has domesticated global best practices to become a regional hub in scientific discoveries and innovations whose ripple effects are being felt across strategic sectors of the economy.

ChinaProtecting Heroes

China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has stressed strict enforcement of a new law to protect the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.

The law was adopted by the country’s top legislature in April and went into effect on May 1. The SPC ordered courts nationwide to punish those who violate the rights of name, portrait, reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs in accordance with the law.

People who profane or deny the deeds and spirit of the heroes and martyrs and those who glorify wars or acts of invasion and disturb the social order can face criminal punishments, the SPC said.

2018 Next Generation LeaderA 32-year-old Nigerian author, Farida Ado, has made the TIME magazine 2018 Next Generation Leaders list. A resident of Kano, a city in north Nigeria, the author who has been described as “Kano’s Jane Austen” is a romance novelist otherwise known as littattafan soyayya (books of love). “Every positive example [the reader] gets on how to solve his or her problems is a plus to society,” she says. Ado comes from the Islamic conservative part of Nigeria where women’s rights are restricted. “I try to reflect the reality of society in my stories,” she adds. She has written six books on topics ranging from forbidden romance to polygamy.

Ding Junhui Makes Snooker Hall of Fame

China’s former world-best snooker player Ding Junhui was inducted into the world snooker Hall of Fame at the annual World Snooker Awards ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in central London on May 10. Ding, now ranks No.6 in the world, became the 29th man to receive the honor which was introduced in 2011.

The 31-year-old, who has won 13 ranking events and has a huge influence on the growth of snooker in China over the past 15 years, became the second Asian to be inducted into the Hall of Fame after Thailand’s Sindhu Pulsirivong, the long-serving President of the Billiard Sports Association of Thailand.