Karti urges China to increase investments in Sudan’s non-oil sector
August 29, 2014 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s foreign minister, Ali Karti, has called on Chinese officials to increase investments in the country’s non-oil sector, while expressing a readiness to review regulations to promote it.
Up to 2010, China investments were largely concentrated in the oil sector (99.90%). The other sectors are (0.07%) for the industrial, (0.03%) for the services and (0.0001%) for the agricultural.
However, during the recent years, the Asian economic giant started to expand its investments to agriculture, mining, textile, water, electricity, roads, bridges, telecommunications and others.
“Developing cooperation in these areas was one of the objectives of this visit,” Karti said in statements to the government supported Sudanese Media Service (SMC) on Friday.
“We have asked China as a friendly country to cooperate with us in the next phase in the expansion of oil production, and to enter into the field of agriculture, mining and manufacturing,” he added.
Karti is a 3-day visit to Beijing from 26 to 29 August where he discussed ways to consolidate political and economic relations with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Chinese state councillor Yang Jiechi.
The Chinese officials expressed their support to the national dialogue process and praised the recent developments in the relations between Sudan and South Sudan.
The Sudanese minister who met with Chinese oil companies, also expressed the readiness of his government to consider the observations made by Chinese companies in the area of taxes on companies, residence permits procedures, taxes and customs issues.
He further said there is a special judicial commission to examine swiftly issues related to Chinese companies, pointing it allowed to overcome a lot of obstacles and resolve many problems.
(ST)