Chinese envoys call for "mutual benefit" ties with African countries.

(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)

Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

In a recent interview with the official Xinhua News Agency the Chinese ambassadors to Cote d'Ivoire, Namibia and South Africa respectively told reporters that China is a friend of the African countries and a "China craze" is quietly emerging in Africa. In the economic area, China and these African countries are highly supplementary, and there is a need to develop China-Africa collaborative projects vigorously to achieve a win-win result and seek progress side-by-side.

Ma Zhixue, the Chinese ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, said in the interview that the two major problems faced by Africa are peace and development. Africa needs funds, technical expertise and equipment to achieve development while China is encouraging its enterprises to make an inroad into Africa with funds, technical …