As the end of the year approaches, the Chinese Ambassador to Mauritius, H. E. Zhu Liying, met members of the press at the Hennessy Park Hotel, Ebène, earlier this week.
S. E. Zhu Liying took the opportunity to talk about his country and diplomatic relations with Mauritius and Africa. Over the last 40 years, China has grown by leaps and bounds – 7, 8, even 10 and 12%. But this year and next, he says, the forecast is around 5%. “The question is: Who will be the next economic miracle like China? My answer is:
“Next China is China,” the diplomat will say, adding that:
“In this world where the major economies are struggling to revive rapid growth, China continues to play the role of locomotive, with its 36% share of contribution to global growth”.
Ambassador Zhu Liying went on to say that, having eliminated absolute poverty throughout the country, 100 million people had been lifted out of poverty in 10 years, an extraordinary phenomenon worldwide. Highly praised by the United Nations, China is now embarking on a modernization program focused on quality of life, the environment, renewable energies, and scientific and technological innovation. “Enormous investment opportunities are being created in these innovative sectors”, he adds.
H.E. Zhu Liying pointed out that half of the world’s solar and wind-generated electricity is produced in China, while the same number of electric vehicles are driven in China. “And that’s the future of Next China,” he said.
What’s more, he made it clear that China doesn’t live by daylight. “Its development plan, from the early 50s of the last century, has never stopped preparing for a future of 5 years, 10 years, even 30 years and 50 years”.
At the same time, H.E. Zhu Liying pointed out that, at world level, over the past 10 years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has successively proposed 4 major initiatives on : (i) Bell & Road, (ii) global development, (iii) global security and (iv) global civilization. “China’s philosophy, in short and clear terms, is to build a ‘community of humanity’s shared destiny’, a community in which the development of all countries must be balanced, and security and justice must also be balanced”.
On the other hand, the Chinese ambassador affirmed that China attaches particular importance to cooperation with Mauritius. “The elegant example is the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Since January 1, 2021, our two countries have started to implement this FTA. In this first year of the FTA, the volume of our trade reached 91.4 million dollars, or more than 20.5%. By 2022, it had risen to $1.8 billion, or over 15.8%. Mauritian speciality sugars and rums have made spectacular inroads into the Chinese market”, he emphasized.
H.E. Zhu Liying also declared that our two countries recently took stock of vocational training. “In one year, 523 Mauritians (managers, technicians, doctors and nurses, teachers and civil servants) took part in vocational training programs organized in China. Next year, we’ll be stepping up these programs to give Mauritians even more opportunities to study and receive vocational training in China”, he said.
Focusing on innovative fields and financial cooperation, the Chinese ambassador pointed out that the Bank of China in Mauritius has been officially designated by the Bank of Mauritius for its role as “RMB Clearing Bank”.
Concerning BRICS, H.E. Zhu Liying affirmed that China gives priority to African modernization. To this end, he said: “China-Mauritius cooperation must seize these important opportunities to rise to a higher level. Given the brilliant results of cooperation between China and Mauritius, and Mauritius’s technological advances, I am confident that our two countries can prepare even more ambitious cooperation projects in high-tech, finance, medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, making the most of Mauritius’s advantageous and privileged role, in other words, not only as the hub between China and Africa, but above all for Africa as a whole”.
