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CHINESE President Xi Jinping yesterday announced US$60 billion of assistance and loans for Africa at a summit in Johannesburg, signaling China’s commitment to the continent.

China has decided “to provide a total of US$60 billion of funding support that includes US$5 billion of grants in zero interest loans (and) US$35 billion in preferential facility, and export credit loans and concessional loans,” Xi said.

In a slew of pledges at his speech opening the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), he also announced a Sino-African cooperation program on poverty reduction, drought aid and public welfare.

China will increase its assistance to Africa to launch hundreds of projects on poverty alleviation named “Happy Life” and relevant plans focusing on women and children.

It will also exempt the debt of the outstanding intergovernmental interest-free loans due by the end of this year owed by African countries.

China is willing to help Africa on poverty reduction while intensifying its domestic efforts to reduce the population living in poverty, Xi said.

Over the past three decades, 700 million rural residents across China have been helped out of poverty. China was the first developing country to meet its Millennium Development Goals target of reducing the population living in poverty by half ahead of this year’s deadline.

Xi pledged in Beijing last week to help the remaining 70 million poor people in the country shake off poverty and enjoy essential social services by 2020.

China’s experience could be used to help the world reach its poverty reduction targets through cooperation with other nations and foreign aid.

The poverty reduction program is one of 10 major programs Xi announced yesterday to strengthen cooperation with Africa over the next three years. The others cover industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

The two-day FOCAC meeting is the second time China has brought together African leaders since the forum was launched in Beijing in 2000. The group includes China and 50 African countries with which it has diplomatic ties, and the Commission of the African Union.

“Here is a man representing a country once called poor, a country which never was our colonizer. He is doing to us what we expect those who colonized us yesterday to do,” said Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Xi, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, landed in South Africa after a brief visit to Zimbabwe.