Food security push seen to feed Chinese demand for African farm products, with the EV and construction sectors driving raw materials buys.

Military coups and a jihadist insurgency have fuelled the illegal logging and export of the protected timber, according to EIA report.

Top Pentagon officials visited Hargeisa last week, and toured the newly renovated port and airport at Berbera.

The expressway opening in Kenya’s capital is part of a shift by China’s Belt and Road Initiative away from debt financing toward public-private partnerships.

Bilateral trade rose 23 per cent to US$64.8 billion, compared to the same period in 2021, boosted by African exports of minerals and metals.

The country has signed deals with eight countries totally US$3.5 billion over the past 20 years to buy equipment and build bases.

Conditions have changed dramatically since the two countries signed a deal to promote sustainable forestry, minister says.

The small African country’s environment minister talks climate financing at the IMF’s spring meeting as the need to replace oil revenues grows.

Kibaki, who died last week aged 90, stepped up the country’s efforts to attract investment from Asian countries rather than the West.

Data shows 11 deals worth US$1.9 billion were signed in eight countries in 2020, a 78 per cent drop on the previous year.

Ambassador Du Xiaohui has no direct role in negotiations with the African country’s Chinese lenders but some hope he can build a bridge.

Chinese companies have large investments in Guinea, and about half of China’s imports of bauxite – a mineral used to make aluminium – are from the West African nation.

The Kenyan auditor general had warned that port could be seized if the country fell behind in its loan repayments for a railway – a conclusion now disputed by a group of researchers in the US.

South African vineyards have started tailoring their product to the Chinese market, with exports soaring in 2021.

China is a relatively small player in a market dominated by Russia but could be well placed to grow its share.

Dozens of countries that have close ties to both Moscow and the West have been hesitant to make their stand known.

China Molybdenum had its operations at the massive Tenke Fungurume mine suspended after it was accused of not declaring thousands of tonnes of reserves

The digital ‘expressway’ starts in Pakistan and will eventually reach France.

Beijing has stepped up its diplomatic efforts in both regions, which are vital to its strategic interests and investments.

The continent relies heavily on Russian and Ukrainian exports, but Russia’s invasion and resulting sanctions have disrupted supply and pushed up prices.

As conflict threatens investments, China needs to see that economic growth and stability are a two-way street, observers point out.

Work is on hold at the China-backed Simandou mine, home to one of the biggest undeveloped reserves in the world.

Long-discussed agreements have been struck to ease the obligations imposed on African traders to enter the Chinese market.

China Moly has been suspended from running the massive Tenke-Funrugume copper and cobalt mine, and its contracts face renegotiation.

As crude prices rise amid Ukraine-Russia war, the oil-rich nation will have to increase its instalments as part of debt relief agreements.

Moscow has been the biggest arms seller in the region for more than a decade, propping up regimes on Nato’s southern flank, analysts say.

Under the scanner are the US$6 billion Sicomines deal with Chinese firms, and China Moly’s alleged unreporting of reserves at its Tenke mine.

Friendship between the two largely unrecognised governments is regarded by Beijing as a threat to its strategic interests in the Horn of Africa.

The Common Framework was meant to help out low-income nations battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Tanzania, built with US$40 million of Communist Party funding, could aid Beijing’s ‘party-to-party diplomacy’.