China's development model sets a very good example for African nations, and young people of both should be prepared to carry on the long-established friendship, a senior leader from Tanzania said.

"China's development model sets a very good example for African nations, in Tanzania in particular," Hon. Pius Msekwa, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Party of Tanzania, also known as CCM in Swahili, told Xinhuanet during the second China-Africa Young Leaders Forum.

"It is a model which shows how a country can develop from a low level of production to very high level of production and it is the correct model for all developing nations, especially for African nations," Msekwa said.

"And we have to learn from this, to see how it was done successfully, the plans, programs that enable China to achieve what has been achieved since 1949," he emphasized.

He also underlined the importance of mutual learning and called on the youth to be well-prepared. "There are many ways of preparing people, education and training are one of them, and exposure is another."

"The kind of Young Leaders Forum is a good example, which enables them to meet people from other countries. They talk to each other and they get to know each other and in the process they make friends," he believed.

He said that friendship is the most stable base for cooperation when he said "cooperation is more meaningful between people who know each other, who are friends than between people who don't know each other."

When asked about how to strengthen China-Africa cooperation, Msekwa said, "One sure way is to make use of Chinese experts."

Giving an example that Chinese engineers working in Tanzania impart knowledge and skills to their Tanzanian counterparts, he stressed, "learning by doing is the good way of training people."

On cultural exchanges, he said, there are ongoing people-to-people exchange programs in education between China and Tanzania. "When the Tanzanian students learning in China come back, they are useful to the society."

Speaking highly of China's assistance to Africa, Msekwa said the assistance is based on long-established friendship. "Companies in the west are business-oriented, they are to make profits whatever projects they participate in, they look for what they can get out of it, not what African countries would get out of it."

"China does not have that approach," he went, "China is to help the African nations build their own capacity to develop and that's the difference we very much appreciate."

On his expectations for the youth, he said expectations alone are not enough. "We have the obligation to help the young people to understand the importance of cooperation, so that they can maintain it and further develop it."

Ending the interview, Msekwa quoted an English saying: "Where there is a will there is a way. The will is there, so surely there will be a way to success."

Nearly 200 young leaders from China and 38 African countries attended the forum. Co-sponsored by the Communist Party of China and the South West Africa People's Organization, a Namibian political party, the forum opened Monday.

(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2012)