China provides $10b in loans to Africa

Premier Wen Jiabao offered US$10 billion in concessional loans to Africa over the next three years at a two-day China-African summit in Egypt, the South China Morning Post reported. The figure is double the amount offered by President Hu Jintao at the last summit in 2006. The move comes as Beijing attempts to further develop a relationship which is now providing an economic boom for both China and Africa, with the former keen to purchase natural resources and the latter seeking access to inexpensive Chinese-made goods. But the relationship upsets some in the West who say China is only interested in the continent for its resources, and accuse the country of  supporting governments with questionable human rights records as a method of getting them. Commentators in Africa contend that the relationship is one of mutual development which is different than treatment the continent receives from Europe and the US.