China's increased trade with and investment in Africa has boosted the continent's growth rate, but there's been criticism of exploitation. Earlier, we spoke to an expert from the Center for African Economics Studies from Zhejiang Normal University, who refuted those criticisms. In fact, she said most of China's loans can really help the continent.

LIU QINGHAI HEAD, CENTER FOR AFRICAN ECONOMICS STUDIES ZHEJIANG NORMAL UNIV. "China's loan to Africa accounts for a very small proportion of Africa's total debt. It's about 1.8 percent. Look at Africa's total debt in the World Bank database. As of 2016, the continent's external debt balance is about 6 trillion US dollars. What proportion of China's total non-financial loans are in Africa? We have a Sino-African research project from the Hopkins University's Advanced International Institute, and it specifically has a database of Chinese-to-African loans. It adds up to about 94 billion US dollars, from a period from 2000 to 2015. So this ratio is very small. In fact, Africa's external debt is not mainly China's -- mainly commercial debt and the World Bank's debt. China's loans to Africa are actually beneficial to the reduction of African debt. That's because most of China's loans goes to transportation, which is the largest industry. And they urgently need the money."