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News Stories - China and Africa

If you visit almost any marketplace in Africa, many of the consumer goods on sale - from buckets to razor blades to hurricane lamps - are likely to be Chinese. In a very large number of African capitals, the main football stadium is likely to have been built with Chinese aid money.

Sino-African trade - and aid - is large and growing. Some estimates put it as high as twelve billion dollars a year. Although direct comparisons are difficult, the links between the world's largest developing country, China, and the world's largest developing continent could grow to challenge the post-colonial links between Europe and Africa. The meeting in Addis Ababa has heard Chinese promises to cancel debts, grant duty-free access into China for African products and increase Chinese investments in Africa.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe used the meeting to praise China and attack the west. But political links and so-called 'South South Cooperation' are only one aspect of the Addis meeting. Chinese and African businessmen used the meeting to network among each other to place more Chinese goods on stalls in African marketplaces.

- vocabulary:

consumer goods: here: items which are for sale
hurricane lamps: paraffin lamps in which the flame is specially protected by glass

Sino-African trade: the buying, selling and exchanging of goods and services between China and Africa

to challenge: to be in competition with
post-colonial: the time following a period of history in which African countries, then known as 'colonies', were ruled by foreign powers
grant: give
duty-free access: the entry of one country's goods into another country without the payment of any tax

so-called: placed before a word or phrase, indicates that something is usually referred to in a particular way
aspect: part
to network: to make personal contact; to meet other people involved in the same kind of work