The Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged to offer one billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa, as the continent continues to struggle to acquire enough jabs to immunize against the disease, reported Africa News.
“We must continue to fight together against Covid,” President Xi said in a speech made via video link to a China-Africa summit told summit. “We must prioritize the protection of our people and close the vaccination gap”.
The Chinese President said his country would donate 600 million doses directly and a further 400 million doses would come from other sources, such as investments in production sites. He said the move aims to help the African Union achieve its goal of vaccinating 60% of the African population by 2022.
Notably, the vaccination rates in Africa are very low compared to the rest of the world. Most of the African countries depend on foreign vaccine donations due to the lack of local production facilities and prohibitive costs of mass purchases.
Last month, US President Joe Biden also announced vaccine donations to Africa, pledging 17 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the African Union.
President Jinping said the government will set up a China-Africa cross-border yuan centre to provide African financial institutions with a credit line of $10 billion.
The Chinese president’s statement comes as part of a forum between China and African states with an emphasis on trade and security, among other issues, held in the city of Diamniadio.
China is Africa’s largest trading partner with direct trade amounting to worth over $200 billion in 2019, according to the Chinese embassy in Dakar.
Xi said China’s total imports from Africa, one of its key sources of crude oil and mineral supply, will reach $300bn in the next three years.
The additional vaccine doses will add to the nearly 200 million doses that China has already supplied to African countries so far.
