Sierra Leone recovers with 'help of friend'

Country's president thanks China for debt write-off, saying he is optimistic for the future of the continent

Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma says China's decision to write off his country's debts will now give the West African republic breathing space to focus on other priorities.

China made the debt cancellation move at the start of the president's six-day visit to the country that marks the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"We welcome such a pronouncement because it is helping us out of a very difficult situation. Giving us this relief will help us address other important issues," he says.

Sierra Leone's was one of the fastest growing economies in Africa in the past decade but was hit by two devastating events, the collapse of the price of iron ore, its main export, and the Ebola epidemic, which killed 3,590 people. Its GDP contracted 21.5 percent in 2015.

Koroma, who was speaking at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, says the crisis facing the country was extremely challenging.

"It has been very difficult but with the support of friends like China we have been able to roll out programs of recovery to restore our utilities, get our services back and provide support for our private sector to get the market properly operating again," he says.

Koroma, who has been president since 2007, says the economy is now on target to grow 4.7 percent this year and by 5.4 percent in 2017.

"This shows that although, yes, it has been difficult, the measures adopted, including austerity ones, have resulted in things taking shape and in the not too distant future we will be able to restore ourselves to pre-Ebola status and become one of the fastest growing economies in the world again."

One of the biggest investors in Sierra Leone is Shandong Iron and Steel, which owns the country's Tonkolili iron ore mine. It ceased production during the Ebola crisis but resumed activity last year. The president made a visit to Shandong on Dec 3.

"We need to visit them to encourage them to scale up their activities. The projections they have made before they are not currently hitting. We are therefore looking for assurances," he says.

Koroma welcomed China's commitment to Africa and, in particular, Chinese President Xi Jinping's trebling of funding support to $60 billion (55.6 billion euros; 47.4 billion) at the second Forum on China Africa Cooperation Summit (FOCAC) in Johannesburg in December last year.

FOCAC has itself enhanced the relationship between China and Africa with President Xi escalating it to the highest level of comprehensive strategic and cooperativity partnership and giving his support for Africa playing a bigger role internationally, he says.

During his visit an agreement was also signed by the two sides to support the establishment of a center for disease control in the country.

"Ebola is new to us all, including China at the time, and we have learned lots of lessons and are still learning. There is no complete study on Ebola but this is an opportunity for us to continue to study the virus."

Koroma, who was a senior insurance executive before he became president, believes in developing a market-led approach to Sierra Leone's development.

"We have an open market and we want to create an environment that is friendly and supportive to external investors. We are not an exclusively a Chinese market. We have other players but it seems that the Chinese are getting an upper hand," he says.

Koroma says he hopes some Chinese manufacturing - particularly in resources processing - will now move to Sierra Leone as it has done to some other African countries such as Ethiopia, famous for Chinese shoemaking.

"We believe that should be the next step. These are the issues we are now looking at," he says.

The president says he is also optimistic for the future of the continent, despite the commodities recession denting the frequently vaunted "Africa Rising" narrative of the last decade.

"The future of Africa is still bright. We still have the world's largest supply of arable land, are home to a good number of mineral resources. Oil and gas is discovered regularly and we have marine resources in abundance. We just need to develop them to the fullest," he says.

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn