Cape Verde's Deputy Prime Minister Olavo Correia defended that cooperation with China must be "based on mutual benefit" and not "merely commercial", which would force African countries into high public debt.

In an interview with Lusa in Washington, on the sidelines of the 2024 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, Olavo Correia confirmed that Cape Verde already has projects ready to be presented within the framework of cooperation with China and that "some private projects are being finalised" to do so, but he assessed that the approach with Beijing "cannot be based solely on a project logic".

"That will not solve any problems, that will not solve the problems of Africa, nor of Cape Verde. It is important, of course, but the approach with China must be more transformative, more structural, more anchored in development, more developmentalist, it must be anchored in a new quality of cooperation and not just in projects", he defended.

"Even if they are large, they will not solve the problem of the African continent or of Cape Verde, and we want China to be a partner to help solve the pressing problems that Africa faces, such as access to energy, water, sanitation, housing, education. But also today, and increasingly, the fourth industrial revolution - fortunately technological - in which China also has an important role and which it can put at the service of the development of the African continent", he added.

China and the Portuguese-speaking countries will meet again in Macau on Monday, after an eight-year hiatus and the end of the covid-19 pandemic, to relaunch trade and investment.

The sixth ministerial conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries will run until Tuesday and includes the signing of the new action plan for the organisation, better known as the Macau Forum, until 2027.

A cooperation fund, worth one billion dollars (941 million euros), was created 10 years ago by the Development Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Development Fund of Macau.

However, the access rules have been criticised by member countries of the Macau Forum, which are calling for more flexible access to existing funds.

Olavo Correia, who is also Cape Verde's Minister of Finance and Business Development, argued that China has all the conditions to help the African continent solve the problem of access to energy, for example, but he defended a look at the "new priorities" of this cooperation.

"We have almost half of the African population without access to energy when we have solutions, we have financing, we have a need, and therefore it makes no sense that this is happening on the African continent. Therefore, we can, within the framework of cooperation with China, solve this challenge for the African continent", he said.

"This cooperation must benefit both parties. It cannot be merely commercial cooperation that could, let's say, force African countries into high public debt. It must be cooperation based on the mutual benefit of China, but also of the African continent", the minister stressed.

At the same time, Olavo Correia highlighted, cooperation with Beijing must create the conditions for a vast infrastructure programme, but with concessional financing, rejecting the logic of "investing today, but then mortgaging the future" of African countries.

"China needs Africa and Africa needs China. I think that if we put these points on the table, in a cooperation focused on transformative solutions, in defending mutual interest (...) and focused on solving the challenges of people (...), then we will have here a cooperation that reaches the founding elements of the future development of the African continent and it is on this path that we should allocate cooperation with China, so that it may be a bearer of success for the African continent and for China", he stated.

The minister stressed that, during the meeting in China, he will raise precisely these issues, so that a "better reflection" can be made in favour of optimising these relations.

"If Africa is developed and prosperous, China will win, if the opposite happens, neither China nor the world will win", he insisted.

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