Government and business representatives from Ghana and Tanzania joined their Chinese counterparts for the "China-Africa Cooperation: Vision and Action" forum in Beijing on Wednesday to explore the potential for China-Africa cooperation. 

In recent years, China has become one of Africa's major development partners. With sustained investment in agriculture, health care, education and infrastructure construction, China's investment in Africa from the government to the private sector has been actively developed and is expected to grow significantly in the next few years. 

Many said that, different from the western countries, China has always had a unique pattern in the field of development cooperation for African countries. Attendees agreed that China has rich experience in improving people's health and alleviating poverty, and can be applied to African countries to help them solve relevant challenges. 

Jane Xing, deputy director of Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation Beijing Office, said, "A lot of the previous China-Africa engagement is focused on economic development, driven by infrastructure investment, that will have significant impact on social and economic development. We believe there are lots of potential areas in healthcare, agriculture to improve financial inclusion in African countries."

Edward Boateng, ambassador of the Republic of Ghana to China, said, "Chinese companies have helped us in infrastructure development, we have also work with them to improve our infrastructure construction. We also look at the cultural cooperation and how the two countries can move together towards the new era that President Xi has described."

Mbelwa Kairuki, ambassador of the United Republic of Tanzania, said China-Africa cooperation can do more and do better. "For this cooperation to become even more meaningful and assist Africa out of poverty, there is impetus to invest in infrastructure, invest in agriculture, and invest in people."

"Since the turn of the 21st century, China has catapulted from being a relatively small investor in the continent to becoming Africa’s biggest economic partner," he said.

According to a recent report released by McKinsey, Africa-China trade increased from 13 billion US dollars in 2001 to 188 billion US dollars in 2015 – an average annual growth rate of 21 percent. FDI has grown even faster, from 1 billion in 2004 to 35 billion dollars in 2015, according to official figures. This represents a breakneck average annual growth rate of 40 percent. 

In 2015, Chinese commitments to infrastructure in Africa amounted to 21 billion US dollars – more than the combined total of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa, whose members include the African Development Bank, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, and the Group of Eight (G8) countries. The report says that Chinese infrastructure commitments grew at an average annual rate of 16 percent from 2012 to 2015 and supported many of Africa’s most ambitious infrastructure developments.