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Developing nations need more time to pass crisis: Mubarak

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-08 20:02

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Developing countries need a longer time to overcome the side effects of the global financial crisis, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said here Sunday.

"This economic crisis added more to the challenges for the African and developing countries," said Mubarak at the opening ceremony of the fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Developed countries may overcome the crisis by next year; however, African and developing countries need a longer time to overcome the side effects of the crisis due to the decline in investments, exports and rise of unemployment rates in addition to fewer opportunities to borrow loans from international financial institutions, he said.

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The fourth FOCAC ministerial meeting opened in Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh Sunday morning. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Mubarak and other African heads of state or government attended the opening ceremony.

The Egyptian president said during his speech that Egypt was the first African country to recognize the People's Republic of China more than half a century ago, and Egypt supports the one- China policy and also supports the FOCAC from the first day of its establishment.

"FOCAC is to establish a new stage of relations between China and Africa and (a partnership) that Africa and China are looking forward to for peace, security and development," said Mubarak.

"This reflects the solid relations between people of Africa and China throughout history and an effective model of fruitful South- South cooperation," he said.

"We meet here in Sharm el-Sheikh to stress once again our commitment to the principles we accepted to establish our partnership," he said.

"We, together, have achieved many successes during the past three years ... Trade volume between Africa and China is about US$100 billion on yearly basis and we witnesses a steady increase of the Chinese investment in African countries," he added.

The main agenda of the meeting is to review the implementation of the follow-up activities of the FOCAC Beijing Summit and the 3rd ministerial conference and explore new initiatives and measures on the way toward Sino-African cooperation in such areas of priority as human resources, agriculture, infrastructure development, investment and trade.