BEIJING: President Xi Jinping pledged on Thursday to step up China’s support across the debt-distressed African continent with funding of nearly $51 billion, backing for more infrastructure initiatives and a promise to create at least 1 million jobs. The commitments were made at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing.

Beijing, the world’s biggest two-way lender, also promised to carry out three times as many infrastructure projects across resource-rich Africa, despite Xi’s new preference for “small and beautiful” schemes based around selling advanced and green technologies in which Chinese firms have invested heavily. “China is ready to deepen cooperation with Africa in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, trade and investment,” Xi told delegates from more than 50 African nations gathered in Beijing for the ninth meeting of the three yearly forum.

After the opening ceremony, delegates adopted the Beijing Declaration to build an “all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era,” as well as the Beijing Action Plan for 2025-2027, China’s state media said.

Xi also called for “a China-Africa network featuring land-sea links and co-ordinated development,” as he told Chinese contractors to return to the one-billion-strong continent, after the lifting of COVID-19 curbs that disrupted its projects.