China offers training, educational opportunities to Africa

China plans to provide training and educational opportunities to Africa to help solve the continent's talent shortage, Chinese President Xi Jinping said here Friday.

China will establish a number of local vocational education centers and competence-building colleges for Africa, train 200,000 technicians and provide the continent 40,000 training opportunities to China, Xi said while delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of a landmark summit on China-Africa cooperation.

Lack of talents is one of the three major bottlenecks in Africa's development, Xi said in the ceremony he co-chaired with South African President Jacob Zuma, referring to the other two problems of lagging infrastructure construction and finance shortage.

China will also offer 2,000 educational opportunities with degrees or diplomas and 30,000 government scholarships to African students, Xi added.

Each year, China will sponsor visits by 200 African scholars and training trips by 500 young Africans to China, and train 1,000 media professionals for Africa, Xi said.

As part of the efforts to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and Africa, the Chinese president also offered support for the opening of more direct flights between China and Africa, and promised to provide assistance in building five cultural centers for Africa.

Themed "Africa-China Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development," the summit is the second of its kind under the 15-year-old framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which groups China, 50 African countries that have established diplomatic ties with China, and the Commission of the African Union. Endi