After years of investing directly in African nations, it is time for China to join hands with its African partners to explore other markets, a high-level Algerian official said.

"Why don't we invest together in other African or Arabian countries?" Abdelkader Bensalah, president of the Council of the Nation of Algeria, told China Daily on Sunday.

Algeria would like to encourage cooperation among enterprises from both countries and make "strategic investments", he said.

Bensalah is in China as the representative of Algerian President Adelaziz Bouteflika at the Boao Forum. He met with President Xi Jinping on Sunday afternoon.

Algeria is the largest nation on the African continent.

Trade between China and Algeria reached $6.42 billion in 2011, 24.1 percent more than the previous year. Algeria is China's largest market of charted projects in Africa and China is the largest source of Algeria's imports.

China's cooperation with Algeria will extend to multilateral platforms, such as those including other African countries and Arab nations, he said.

Bensalah said he flew to China to attend the Boao forum because "it is a forum organized in China, a country that is a friend, where new political leadership just came into power".

"From this point of view, our presence here also testifies to our friendship with the Chinese people."

Besides, he added, "it is a forum for dialogue on topics that do not concern the continent of Asia only. It is also a meeting where Africa shall be represented".

China has expressed a strong will to enhance multilevel cooperation with Africa. That is in accordance with Algeria's development strategy, Bensalah said.

Under the framework of the forum set up in 2000, China has offered soft loans of more than $15 billion to Africa and help in other forms.

According to data from the Fifth Forum on China and Africa Cooperation ministerial meeting in July, China has helped African communities build some 100 schools, 30 hospitals and 20 agri-tech demonstration centers across the continent.

Bensalah said he has visited China many times. When he was in Shanghai to attend the World Expo 2010 as a representative of the Algerian president, he met Xi, who was then vice-president.

"I was able to feel his willingness to develop the Algeria-China relationship," Bensalah said.

The Algerian president also has a strong commitment to the ties, Bensalah said, as shown by the president's three visits to China since taking office.

The two countries have always been close and treated each other with mutual respect, he said.

"The Algerian people will not forget China's support for Algeria's fight for independence and its solidarity in Algeria's post-colonial social-economic reconstruction period, which led to the comprehensive and strategic partnership achieved today."

China was the first country outside the Arab world to recognize Algeria when it founded a provisional government in September 1958. In December of that year, the two countries established diplomatic ties.

"Algeria is proud of having been by the side of China in its legitimate fights such as the restoration of China's lawful seat in the UN in 1971," Bensalah said.

Now, with economic cooperation surging, the Chinese community is the second-largest foreign community in Algeria, he said.

Algeria expects its cooperation with China to spread from traditional spheres to new ones where China has rich experience and advantages, such as the peaceful use of nuclear energy, space technology and IT, he said.

During his China trip, Bensalah is also scheduled to meet other Chinese leaders and key economic figures.

(China Daily 04/08/2013 page11)