According to a press statement delivered on Tuesday by Ms Hua Chunying, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, the theme for this year’s summit is “Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future.”
The statement said leaders of FOCAC’s African members will attend the summit at the invitation of the Forum. Representatives of relevant African regional and international organisations will also attend the forum events.
The upcoming summit will be the fourth time the FOCAC meeting will be held in China.
The summit will also serve as yet another friendly gathering of the big China-Africa family in Beijing after the 2018 FOCAC Summit, where mutual respect, treating each other as equals and joint consultation are important features of FOCAC.
With the joint effort of China and Africa, the 2024 FOCAC Summit is expected to be a great success, open up new vistas for China-Africa relationship and write a new chapter of building a China-Africa community with a shared future.
It would be recalled that the establishment of FOCAC in 2000 created the China-Africa friendship family with its own collective dialogue platform and practical cooperation mechanism.
In September 2018, H.E. President Adama Barrow attended the FOCAC Summit for the first time since he became the leader of The Gambia, which also officially joined the FOCAC family.
Since the 2018 summit, both governments of The Gambia and the People’s Republic of China have actively implemented the important consensus of the two heads of state and the outcomes of the FOCAC Beijing Summit.
Among the substantial deliverables of the China-Gambia cooperation, the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center was built with Chinese aid, and has served as the main venue of the recent OIC Summit, hosted by the Gambian government.
In the same vein, the upcoming FOCAC Summit will offer historical opportunity for China and The Gambia as well as other African countries to work together and formulate blueprint of future cooperation, further strengthening friendship and adding a new momentum to the building of a China-Africa community with a shared future.
