China's Hu heads to Liberia
Posted: 01 February 2007 1349 hrs

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MONROVIA : Chinese President Hu Jintao is travelling to Liberia on the second leg of his African tour aimed at winning a larger share of the continent's oil and energy resources.

The streets and war-blackened buildings in the oceanside capital of Monrovia are brightly festooned with Chinese and Liberian flags in Hu's honour.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf expressed gratitude for Beijing's reconstruction aid and the deployment of Chinese peacekeepers as the west African country strives to recover from more than a decade of civil war.

"Liberians will never forget the friendship of Chinese peacekeeping soldiers," she told Chinese journalists ahead of Hu's arrival, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

About 500 Chinese peacekeepers take part in the UN mission in the country, and China has contributed to various infrastructure projects here, including a stadium and a sugar mill.

Sirleaf said her country's relations with China were mutually beneficial and expressed hope that Hu's visit would bring good opportunities to Liberia.

"We do not want just to be one-sided -- we want to give," she said Wednesday.

Trade between the two countries shot up by 155 percent last year from 2005 to 375 million dollars, according to Xinhua.

Hu's visit is the first by a Chinese head of state since the two countries re-established diplomatic ties in 2003 after Liberia emerged from civil war. Sirleaf attended the China-Africa summit held in Beijing last November.

The Chinese president began his eight-nation African tour, his third since coming to power in 2003, in Cameroon on Tuesday.

In meetings there Wednesday he approved grants and loans to Cameroon worth more than 54 million dollars (41.5 million euros), Cameroonian national radio reported.

Hu's tour reflects China's strong economic interest in Africa, where it wants to secure raw materials and energy reserves needed to fuel its roaring economic growth.

Hu and his counterpart Paul Biya also signed a draft agreement on scrapping Cameroon's debt to China and a series of health and educational accords, Cameroon national radio said.

Emphasising its commitment to Africa, China said Monday it would write off debts owed by 33 African countries as part of a multi-billion-dollar pledge made last year to help fast-track the continent's development.

Cooperation between China and Africa was going to "rise in volume and size to reach the highest levels and make a greater contribution to the well-being of the Chinese and African people," Hu said at a gala dinner with Biya.

At a historic summit in November last year that brought leaders from 48 African nations to Beijing, Hu pledged to double aid to the continent and offer five billion dollars in loans and credits by 2009.

But Beijing's policy towards Africa has drawn concern in the West because of its close links with hardline regimes in countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Hu heads Friday to the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Rights groups hope Hu will use his visit to Sudan, where China is pumping substantial quantities of oil, to back international calls for an end to the civil war in the Darfur region, a conflict the United States has called genocide.

Beijing, by far the biggest foreign economic investor in Sudan, is thought to be in a position to persuade Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur.

The Chinese president is also due to visit Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and the Seychelles during his 12-day tour. - AFP/ir