Growth Point

　　China’s agricultural assistance to Egypt bodes well for other African countries

　　Government agricultural assistance is an important component of Sino-African exchanges under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The Chinese Government has been enhancing this cooperation. Last November， a team of four agricultural experts went to Egypt for a six-month assistance program. Funded by China’s Ministry of Commerce， the program was carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Center for International Cooperation Services. The team， comprising of two biogas experts and two on agricultural machinery， will complete its work in May. Li Mingjiang， team leader and a biogas expert， talked with ChinAfrica reporter Ni Yanshuo about their work and his views on Sino-African agricultural exchanges.

　　ChinAfrica： How are the assistance projects in Egypt going？

　　Li Mingjiang： The Chinese Government has provided 64 sets of biogas generation equipment for 10 projects and 34 sets of farm machines for nine projects. We have finished most of the installations and tests. The handover to the Egyptian Government will be done after testing.

　　These sets of high quality and technologically advanced machinery and equipment have been designed according to local conditions and needs. They have been highly spoken of by Egyptian agricultural experts and well received by the farms and agricultural machinery centers that received the equipment. When put into use after completion， they will surely play an important role in improving rural areas’ energy supply and agricultural machinery development in Egypt.

　　China’s Africa assistance focuses more on the principle of “teaching a man to fish， rather than simply giving him fish.” What have you done in this regard？

　　Our assistance programs are being done exactly according to this principle. In the agricultural machinery projects， our Chinese experts and engineers demonstrated the technologies they used to their Egyptian counterparts. That is to “teach them how to fish.”

　　The two biogas experts have trained over 20 Egyptian biogas professionals and engineers. By mid-March， our team had trained more than 70 technicians to use biogas and farm machines.

　　Besides government assistance， there are mutually beneficial cooperation projects undertaken by Chinese and African agricultural enterprises. Are these two forms of exchange compatible？

　　I think they are mutually supportive and complementary. Government assistance projects can offer ideas and demonstrations for enterprises intending to do such projects in African countries. Of course， the enterprises can interact with the government on project designs.

　　Some projects can run better with government assistance， while others are more suitable for enterprises. And some are better conducted with government assistance at the beginning， and then taken over and expanded by enterprises in the form of mutual beneficial cooperation.

　　Take our program for example. When we were installing and testing our equipment and machinery in Egypt， some Egyptian agricultural officials were so impressed by them that they planned to take Egyptian enterprises to China to buy more agricultural machinery. This is a successful example of the third form of cooperation.

　　What are China and African countries’ unique advantages in agriculture？

　　Both have their respective advantages. China has technology and skill， while African countries boast rich resources and good geographical environment.

　　Over the past decades， China has achieved great progress in agro-technology applications， and resource allocation in agriculture. It has also progressed in developing sustainable and ecological agriculture. In the process， it has created a large pool of talented agricultural personnel of different levels， building up a base of intelligence support and skilled people for agricultural cooperation with African countries.

　　Take the biogas project for example. Thanks to the abundant sunlight in Egypt， its average temperature is higher than China’s. Thus， the fermentation temperature is also higher， leading to the fact that the biogas generation here is much faster than that in China. China’s biogas technology can play bigger roles here.