Accelerating the integration efforts of Africa and supporting the continent’s medical industry towards increased local manufacturing of drugs are some of the topics that are expected to be on agenda during the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit, a collective cooperation meeting between China and African countries. Held after every three years, the upcoming edition is expected to be held in Dakar, Senegal towards the end of this year at a date that is yet to be confirmed. Like previous ones, it is expected to bring together various African heads of state and their Chinese counterpart Xi Jin Ping, to collectively look at the next steps in the continent’s corporation with China. A report released this week by the China-Africa Business Council, highlighted some of the expectations and suggestions that the summit may focus on when it convenes. Among these, is looking into how to foster Africa’s integration, for example by supporting the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) that came into effect at the beginning of this year. “As the African Continental Free Trade Agreement has come into effect, further efforts should be made to support African and regional economic integration, facilitate intra-African trade and investment, and promote the connectivity of cross-regional infrastructure,” the report reads. “Furthermore, in line with the AU’s Accelerated Industrial Development for Africa (AIDA) and African Mining Vision (AMV), efforts should be made to focus and scale up Chinese investment cooperation on manufacturing, and value-addition to the mining, extractive and agricultural sectors,” it adds. In addition, the report also tips the speeding up of local manufacturing in the African medical industry alongside the unification of African standards as a topic of interest for the summit, “Local manufacturing is vital to African economies, a challenge made especially clear with the supply restrictions that have arisen during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report says, adding: “Establishing the AU and African regional organisations, the African Medicines Agency (AMA) and the AU technical standards certification organisation as quickly as possible will be very useful and will complement renewed efforts from the Chinese side to encourage investment in local manufacturing of pharmaceutical and medical products, rather than export.” Among other things, the report also talks about the need to look into the investment in the continent’s digital economy “Currently, policies on the digital economy vary greatly among African countries and a lack of infrastructure reduces the willingness of foreign-funded enterprises to invest in Africa on a large scale,” it reads. “The digital economy is critical to African development. Chinese enterprises are encouraged to explore supporting digital development in Africa at all levels, from increasing access to the internet, increasing data storage and bandwidth capacity, to locally manufacturing and reducing the costs of digital equipment, and investing in digital skills and education.” The FOCAC Forum can also be looked at as an opportunity for African countries to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), trying to recover from the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic that has led to lower FDI flows from China to the world, including to Africa. At the previous FOCAC summit (2018), China pledged to provide USD 60 billion in financial support to Africa. In 2019, trade between China and Africa hit USD 208.7 billion, and total Chinese FDI in Africa reached USD 44.4 billion.
