Hua Jianmin, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China (the second from left), Ohm Collins Chabane, Minister in the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa (the second from right), Tian Xuejun, Chinese Ambassador to South Africa (the first from left), and Zhou Mingwei, President of CIPG (the first from right) on hand at the unveiling of the company  (PHOTO BY LI YAFANG)

Hua Jianmin, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, Ohm Collins Chabane, Minister in the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa, Tian Xuejun, Chinese Ambassador to South Africa, and Zhou Mingwei, President of CIPG were on hand at the unveiling of the company.

"The long-lasting China-Africa friendship, our similar historical experiences, common development tasks and interests in a wide range of areas make Chinese and African people closely connected. We are sincere friends, good partners and brothers," said Hua Jianmin in his speech.

"To strengthen the cooperation with developing countries including African countries has always been an important foundation of China's foreign policy. We are willing to make joint efforts with African countries to continuously inject new meaning and vitality to China-Africa friendly relations, and bring China-Africa strategic partnership to a new level," he added.

Hua said that CHINAFRICA Media and Publishing (Pty) Ltd. will not only play an important role in promoting China-Africa cultural exchanges, media cooperation, enhance people-to-people understanding and friendship, but it will also promote South-South cooperation, the building of long-lasting peace, common prosperity and harmonious Sino-African relations.

Ohm Collins Chabane expressed delight at the opportunity to attend the launching ceremony in his speech. The founding of the CHINAFRICA Media and Publishing (Pty) Ltd. is a new measure to further promote China's relations with South Africa and Africa as a whole, encouraging two areas to face their common challenges in cooperation and communication, said Chabane.

Zhou Mingwei said that through ChinAfrica magazine and other publications, CHINAFRICA Media and Publishing (Pty) Ltd. would introduce China's culture, opinions, economic and social development, and the challenges during its development. Meanwhile ChinAfrica would also pay attention to hearing African voices in a bid to understand their needs to develop relations with China, and offer Chinese people information about the South African and African culture, economy and social development.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, the CHINAFRICA Media and Publishing (Pty) Ltd. publishes ChinAfrica, a monthly current affairs magazine targeting an African audience in both English and French. The company plans to gradually move its other areas of corporate activity to Africa in the future to better fulfill Africans' needs for information about China and Sino-Africa relations.

Also at the ceremony, CIPG endowed a number of Chinese and English books published by its subordinate publishing companies to the South Africa National Library and the library of Rhodes University.