China’s Mystery Transportation Infrastructure Deal with the African Union

A China in Africa Podcast

Zhai Jianlan—Xinhua/Zuma Press
The closing ceremony of the 24th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa took place on January 31, 2015. The summit concluded with the adoption of Agenda 2063, a vision and action plan towards a prosperous and peaceful Africa.

It’s not really news anymore when China announces yet another massive infrastructure construction deal in Africa. Typically these deals are done at the national level, so when Beijing and the African Union signed a major transport infrastructure MOU in late January it raised some eyebrows. Both sides praised the deal as a major event, but neither revealed any specifics of how much it was worth or who would actually benefit. James Schneider, Editorial Director at New African magazine was at the PRC/AU signing event and joins Eric and Cobus to shed some light on this mysterious MOU.

 

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