President Xi Jinping's visit to Africa will cement the long-standing friendship between China and the continent and open up a new chapter in the strategic and practical cooperation between the two sides.

Xi arrived in Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, on Sunday to begin his three-nation African trip, which will also take him to South Africa and the Republic of Congo. The fact that African countries are three of the four destinations on Xi's first overseas trip as president - the first stop was Russia - shows the importance China's new leadership attaches to Sino-African interaction.

It is heartening to see, despite the vicissitudes of the times, that the ties between China and African countries have never been stronger. The two sides are supporting each other in their pursuit of common development and collaborating closely on international affairs.

Since the founding of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2000, the two sides have been making headway in deepening their cooperation in a variety of fields, and China overtook the United States to become Africa's largest trading partner in 2009. The volume of bilateral trade stood at nearly $200 billion in 2012, almost 20 times the figure in 2000.

In the keynote speech he delivered on Monday morning in Dar es Salaam, Xi set the tone for Sino-African ties in the coming years. He said that Sino-African ties are at a historical starting point and as a sincere friend China is "willing to contribute more to the continent's peace and development".

His speech embodied China's vision of enriching its interaction with the African continent in an all-round way. Compared to the old model in which China largely focused on providing free aid to the needy in Africa, bilateral interaction has become more mature in recent years and conditions have ripened for reciprocal and win-win cooperation.

By the end of 2012, China's direct investment in Africa had accumulated to nearly $20 billion, with 75 percent going to sectors such as finance, processing and manufacturing, trade-related services, agriculture and transportation. To date, more than 2,000 Chinese enterprises have invested in 50 African countries, with the majority of their employees Africans.

It caters to the interests of both sides to make this rosy picture more sustainable. China's new leader's visit to Africa is an important step in that direction. We have every reason to believe the visit will be a great success, and the tree of China-African friendship will be more fruitful in the years to come.

(China Daily 03/26/2013 page8)