CIDCA vice-chairman hosts 1st tripartite meeting for secretariat of China-Africa-UN Center of Excellence

The first tripartite meeting of the secretariat (preparatory) of the China-Africa (Ethiopia)-United Nations (Industrial Development Organization) Center of Excellence was held in Ethiopia on Oct 11. Zhao Fengtao, vice-chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), presided over the meeting. 

Ethiopian Minister of Industry Melaku Alebel and Zou Ciyong, a deputy to the director general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), attended the meeting and delivered remarks. 

Zhao said the center is a major outcome of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, an important consensus reached between the Chinese president and the prime minister of Ethiopia, and a major measure for China and Africa to jointly advance the 10 partnership actions for modernization, playing a significant role in building an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era. The joint efforts of the three parties have yielded preliminary harvests, he said, urging further efforts to clarify development direction, improve the management mechanism, steadily advance the project, mobilize multiple resources and produce more development outcomes that benefit the people of the Global South, especially those in Africa.

Alebel said the establishment of the center highly aligns with the China-proposed Global Development Initiative and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's action plan for cooperation development. The Ethiopian Ministry of Industry is ready to strengthen partnership with the CIDCA and the UNIDO, using Ethiopia as a bridge and projects as a foundation to promote the modernization of Africa, he said.

Noting that the center is a flagship project of South-South cooperation and tripartite cooperation, Zou said the UNIDO is willing to leverage its comparative advantages in technology and work with China to contribute more solutions that meet Africa's development needs, so as to benefit more African people through the development of the center.

Minutes of the meeting were signed by the three parties at its conclusion. On the same day, Zhao conducted a field survey at the Federal Technical and Vocational Training Institute in Ethiopia, which was built with Chinese assistance.