Interview: EU, China should not compete against each other in int'l development projects: Commissioner

The European Union (EU) and China should not compete against each other in international development projects in partner countries, instead the two sides can invest much more in complementary work in development projects, a senior EU official has said.

Neven Mimica, the European Commissioner in charge of International cooperation and Development, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua, noting that the EU and China had reached a consensus on this point during his visit to China in November last year, with the two sides agreeing to exchange information on development agenda in order to have a very concrete impact on the international development, specially in Africa.

As to some prevailing criticism against China's global development actions, he said this was the result of lack of development dialogue. Mimica noted, for instance, that he heard some criticism saying EU projects might be too much linked with overall human rights, democratic values and rule of law approach, and on the other hand, Chinese projects might face some criticism in terms of being more focused on commercial interests and not so much on development interests.

"But I would never take any of such criticism as well-grounded and I would not take it for granted, unless we really open at all the debate," said Mimica, noting that the EU and China really started the dialogue since his visit to China in last November, and he felt that the two sides have already discussed how both of them can contribute to the development needs of the development partners.

"Criticizing each other's approach to development projects would not contribute to the real complementary nature of our development actions, and there could be such complementarity," he said, adding that therefore by meeting, discussing and debating these atmosphere of mistrust and criticism, the two sides can do much better in future development cooperation.

He said in the discussion with his Chinese counterparts from development sectors, the two sides agreed that they had to strengthen triangle development projects cooperation among the EU, China and Africa concerning national development strategies, so the concrete projects could contribute specially to meeting national development strategies in Africa in a number of sectors, starting from energy sector to waters, sanitation and agriculture.

He said the EU side was engaged much in blending facilities, which means bringing together grant component with the loan capacities of the public or private sector in order to enhance the financial capacity to finance infrastructure projects.

Coordination and cooperation between the EU and China's development institutions will help develop more potential for such blending capacities, he said.

Mimica added that the EU and China are very important contributors to meeting sustainable development goals, therefore he appreciates very much the two sides' common bilateral understanding that they negotiated for the new sustainable development goals agenda.

"China is very much engaging in the global multilateral negotiations on setting new agenda, and we really would like to continue this common agreement along the lines of the new development agenda," said Mimica.

Providing over 50 percentage of all global development aid, the EU is the world's leading donor.

EU development policy is a cornerstone of EU relations with the outside world - alongside foreign, security and trade policy (and international aspects of other policies like environment, agriculture and fisheries). Endit