We sign win to win agreements with Zambia, Chinese Amb. says

CHINESE Ambassador to Zambia Li Jie says it is not true that the China has bought some public properties belonging to the Zambia government as collateral in an event that the host country defaulted in repaying its debt.Speaking at a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday, Jie said most of the Chinese loans given to Zambia are interest free as the two countries enjoy bilateral relations with most deals on a win-win agreement.“I think it is unnecessary to worry about the development of the bilateral corporation. According to some people, we will increase Zambia’s debt burden. China follows three principles in a corporation with Zambia and African countries when we talk about loans or the provision of financial resources. China adheres to the principle of no attachment of political inclinations,” Jie said.He said China will always respect the will and the needs of its Zambian counterparts as well as Africa.He said it was not true that China had bought ZNBC, ZESCO and KK international airport.“The allegations are totally groundless. ZESCO is a company of Zambia, ZNBC is a corporation of Zambia and KK International Airport is a corporation of Zambia. China has its role with the three projects and programs mentioned. For ZESCO it’s clearly a very close partner for the provision and construction of energy of this country and it has very good working relationship with Chinese companies which are taking the technical and business programmes with ZESCO as a stakeholder of the project,” Jie added.And Jie said China supports Zambia with interest free loans.“We support Zambia with interest free loans provided by the Chinese government. We also have preferential loans to Zambia which we call the soft loans. The interest rate is very low around two to two percent, and another one is the import and exports soft loan with also very low interests,” said Jie. Post Views: 161