ABUJA, Nigeria – Chinese President Hu Jintao said Thursday his government will seek closer ties with Africa – a resource-rich frontier for the world’s fastest growing economy – after signing a series of major business deals with oil-rich Nigeria.
Hu, on the second and final day visiting Africa’s largest oil producer before heading to Kenya, said China is seeking “a strategic partnership” with the continent that would improve living standards for Africa.
Hu and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo signed an agreement Wednesday that requires Nigeria’s petroleum ministry to give China’s state oil firm preferential access to four blocks of oil exploration rights in return for China taking over a money-losing refinery in the northern city of Kaduna.
China also agreed to build a hydroelectric power station in the northeastern Mambilla plateau and a fast-rail system linking the capital, Abuja, with the economic capital, Lagos.
And two Chinese telecommunication firms will install rural telephone service across large swathes of Nigeria with the help of Chinese government loans worth more than $200 million.
China’s interest and growing profile in Africa has worried Western rivals for the continent’s resources and markets. And some Africans have complained about being flooded with cheap Chinese goods.
Nigeria is the top African producer of crude and the seventh-largest in the world, normally pumping 2.5 million barrels per day. It was the first sub-Saharan Africa stop on a tour by Hu that has included the United States, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
Militants claiming responsibility for oil-installation attacks and kidnappings that have shut down more than 20 percent of Nigeria’s oil production this year vowed more violence in response to the Chinese deals.
China is hungry for the energy, timber, minerals and other raw materials Africa can provide, and in January, China’s state-controlled oil firm, CNOOC, announced it had reached a deal to pay $2.3 billion for a 45 percent stake in a Nigerian offshore oil field.
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