The African Union said on Saturday Africa must turn ever more to China for its development because conditions and checks often stalled the flow of funds from Western nations and the World Bank, reported Friday’s Reuters.

Maxwell Mkwezalamba, the AU’s economic chief, said Africa must end its reliance on Western money.

« We need to diversify our partners that we work with and hence for us, working with China is something that we have welcomed, » he said at the AU summit in Uganda.

China pledged last year to give Africa $10 billion in concessional loans over the next three years and it is pouring money into developing infrastructure in many nations on the world’s poorest continent.

Mkwezalamba said restrictive conditions placed on loans by some of its traditional Western partners and groups such as the World Bank was driving African nations into the arms of China. He did not specify the restrictive conditions.

Mkwezalamba said Africa’s increasing outreach to China in place of traditional development partners would create friction.

Source : Konaxis