CHINA CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY WORLD STUDIES

From March 19 to 22, Dr. Jin Xin, Director-General of CCCWS, led a delegation to Ethiopia. During the visit, the delegation held “China-East African Cooperation under the Belt and Road Framework Seminar” with the Ethiopian Foreign Relations Strategic Studies Institute (EFRSSI) and visited East Industrial Park and Huajian Industrial Park.

Dr. Jin Xin has noted that China and Ethiopia are good friends, good partners and brothers that stayed side by side despite all weathers and shared weal and woe. China–Ethiopia relations are exemplary for South-South cooperation. East Africa is along the extension of the Maritime Silk Road. Eastern Africa and China, with respective advantages, both need the initiative that can combine China’s strength in capital, technology, market, talents and development experience with East Africa’s natural resources, population dividend and market potential, thus strong power will be instilled into the development of both East Africa and China. Ethiopia is the largest economy in East Africa with a double-digit growth in the past ten years. Stronger cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative will help make East Africa the new area of growth of global economy.

The Ethiopian counterparts have responded that the Belt and Road is an initiative of global investment and development cooperation and it will lead the future globalization, so it is a crucial opportunity for East African countries. Ethiopia attaches great importance to this initiative and hope to speed up industrialization through it. The Silk Road Cooperation Forum to be held in May this year will be an important platform for exploring new modes of international cooperation and global governance models.

Members of the delegation include Prof. Wang Wen, Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, Ms. Mou Hong, CCCWS Research Fellow, Dr. Lin Yongliang, CCCWS Associate Research Fellow, and Ms. Nie Shengquan, CCCWS Research Assistant.