China's new Ambassador to South Africa Lin Songtian (Photo by Li Jianguo)

More than 600 China-Africa projects with a total value exceeding $108 billion have been launched in Africa since the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was held in South Africa in late 2015, said Lin Songtian, China's new Ambassador to South Africa. Lin was addressing the media and think tanks at the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria on August 24. The projects could directly create 209,000 jobs and contribute $1.15 billion of tax revenue for African countries, he said.

The China-Africa Fund for Production Capacity Cooperation is up and running with an initial contribution of $10 billion, according to Lin and this fund together with the China-Africa Development Fund, will provide financial investment and support for China-Africa mutually beneficial cooperation.

Lin noted that since the FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, China has provided training of professional skills to over 100,000 people in Africa and offered nearly 20,000 government scholarships for African countries.

In the first half of 2017, despite the global economic headwinds, China-Africa trade volume soared to $85.3 billion with a year-on-year growth rate of 19 percent, Lin said, adding that the Chinese non-financial direct investment in Africa also grew by 22 percent.

China is committed to supporting Africa to develop self-sustainable systems of industrialization, food security, as well as public health and disease prevention and control, to help the continent address the fundamental issues of employment, food and health.

In this context, China has identified Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Republic of the Congo as pilot countries for China-Africa production capacity cooperation, said Lin, who added that with China's support, remarkable progress is underway in the development of special economic zones and industrial parks in some African countries, which have attracted many investors and created many employment opportunities.

The ambassador said that China's financing support and infrastructure construction in Africa have created opportunities and favorable conditions for some African countries to facilitate their independent sustainable development.

"Railways financed and constructed by Chinese companies, including the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, the Benguela Railway in Angola, and the Abuja-Kaduna Rail Line in Nigeria have all entered into service," said Lin, who also took time to explain China's strong commitment to wildlife protection in Africa.

"China will impose a comprehensive ban on ivory processing and trading for commercial purposes by the end of 2017," he said. "At present, China, the United States, the UK, France and Interpol are planning to launch a joint law-enforcement operation to fight against illegal hunting of endangered wildlife and illegal trading of wild animal products in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Ethiopia."

Lin is one of the most senior diplomats in African affairs in China. Before he became the Chinese Ambassador to South Africa, he was the Director General of the Department of African Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Secretary General of the FOCAC Chinese Follow-up Committee.

He was Chinese Ambassador to Malawi from 2008 to 2010 and Chinese Ambassador to Liberia from 2003 to 2007.

(Reporting from South Africa)