By Talibeh Hydara
Foreign Minister Dr Mamadou Tangara has said The Gambia’s upgraded strategic partnership with China has the potential to leapfrog the country in its development process.
FM Tangara was speaking to GRTS following a high-level meeting on the sidelines of the recently concluded FOCAC summit in Beijing.
Dr Tangara, who was among the delegation that accompanied President Barrow to the summit, said: “We’ve already been upgraded to a strategic partner. I think that’s a step in the right direction where we can leverage on the goodwill of the Chinese government to support Gambia leapfrog in development process.”
He added that The Gambia will expand its cooperation with China to other critical areas of development, especially on food security.
“Already, there are a lot of achievements in terms of infrastructure development but today, we heard the president putting emphasis on food sovereignty and there’s a strong cooperation in the area of agriculture. The Gambia will continue working with the Chinese [government on that]. We also heard President Xi in the ten-point plans mentioning security and peace, which are sine qua non for any country to develop. If you want to develop, you need to have peace and security but the main takeaway from this meeting is that Africans should learn from the discipline and hard work of the Chinese people and put emphasis on building a capable, sound, healthy human resource base. It’s the only way towards development,” he noted.
Also speaking on the sidelines, Seedy Keita, the finance minister, said The Gambia’s fruitful relation with China makes it a strong candidate to benefit from the 50 billion US dollars financial support to African countries.
“The FOCAC summit has been very informative. President Xi Jinping has announced that lent the next three years, the Chinese government will make available 50 billion dollars to African countries. We have a very successful track record with the Chinese government through their support in a number of areas; infrastructure, energy, scholarships, etc. The 10-point agenda of President Xi is earmarked to address food security, infrastructure, industrialization, peace, SMEs, agriculture sector and based on our track record with the Chinese government, we believe we will be eligible for a sizable funding that will come from the package that has been announced,” he said.
Minister Keita said the next stage is to work with the Chinese government in fleshing out the funds into different sectors. “We expect this to materialize in actual financing both in the private sector and the government,” he noted.
The 2024 FOCAC Beijing Summit has ended on Friday with the Chinese government pledging over 50 billion US dollars financial support to African countries in the next three years.
