{"id":1480,"date":"2011-04-24T11:36:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T11:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2011-04-24T11:36:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T11:36:15","slug":"china-puts-its-mark-on-malawi-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/24\/china-puts-its-mark-on-malawi-2\/","title":{"rendered":"China puts its mark on Malawi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>\n<div id=\"articlemeta\">\n<div id=\"attachment_1481\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1481\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1481\" title=\"Chinapic\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Chinapic-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1481\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shanghai Construction Company workers outside Malawi&#39;s new five-star hotel in the capital Lilongwe. China\u2019s presence in the southern Africa nation has been growing steadily since the two countries established diplomatic ties in December 2007. <\/p><\/div>\n<p>Driving through Malawi\u2019s capital, Lilongwe, it is difficult  to miss the imposing building under construction in the city centre.  It\u2019s the country\u2019s first five-star hotel, $90 million worth of  well-appointed rooms, a state-of-the-art conference centre and 14  opulent presidential suites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The hotel is being built  by the Shanghai Construction Company, a Chinese firm, and is one of  numerous projects funded in line with a pledge of $260 million of  concessionary loans, grant and aid from China to Malawi to support  development, including infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>At a ceremony  marking the completion of the main building and conference centre,  China\u2019s ambassador to Malawi Pan Hejun, said he expects the whole  project will be completed by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThis  will attract more and more foreign tourists to Malawi and enable Malawi  to host international conferences such as the AU Summit,\u201d said Pan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Chinese  construction companies have been busy in Malawi. Parliament now  operates from a grand new building which was opened in June 2010. That  project cost around $41 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>And this month, Mr Pan  announced China will assist the Malawi Government to construct a  university of science and technology in the southern district of Thyolo,  which, he said, will be ready in just under two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThe  university, which will accommodate more than 3,000 students with  advanced facilities, will be one of the best universities in  southeastern Africa, and will make great contributions to the national  development of Malawi,\u201d said Pan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Relations growing steadily<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Chinese  construction companies are also building a secondary school in Thyolo,  and a 100km road between the northern districts of Karonga and Chitipa.  The Asian nation has also promised to build a China-Africa Friendship  School in Lilongwe, establish solar and biogas pilot projects and set up  an agricultural technology demonstration centre.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By\u00a0CLAIRE NGOZO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Driving through Malawi\u2019s capital, Lilongwe, it is difficult to miss the imposing building under construction in the city centre. It\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[312,313,314,315,316],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-china","tag-chitipa","tag-hotel","tag-karonga-2","tag-thyolo-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}