Premier Li Keqiang greets Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on his arrival at the presidential villa in Abuja on Wednesday. [Photo/Agencies]

China signed a slew of deals with Nigeria on Wednesday, including cooperation on landmark infrastructure projects, on the first full day of Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the African economic powerhouse.

Li also vowed strong support for Nigeria in its fight against terrorism.

Li and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan officiated at the signing ceremony for the deals after talks at the president's residence. They met last year when Jonathan visited Beijing.

"We're happy to see a fast developing Nigerian economy. It has become Africa's largest economy and keeps rising. ... I believe we'll become motivators of each other," Li told reporters after the meeting.

The deals signed cover an upgrade for Nigeria's communications network, solar power plant construction, as well as agriculture and investment.

Railway communication signals and mining rights were included in the deals but details were not disclosed.

China also donated medical equipment and drugs to help Nigeria fight malaria.

The deals were signed two days after China Railway Construction Corp inked a $13.1 billion deal to build a high-speed railway in Nigeria, one of the largest foreign railway projects China has signed.

Under the contract, the company will build a 1,385-km single-track line for trains that will run at up to 120 km an hour.

"The project will be significant for Nigeria's economic development," Li said, adding that Beijing will push for an early start.

China Railway Construction Corp said it has hired more than 4,000 local workers for the project, while 5,000 more are expected to help operate the line after work is completed.

The two leaders also agreed to start direct flights between their nations, to set up a bilateral commission and facilitate financing services for small and medium-sized Nigerian enterprises.

Yao Guimei, a researcher of African studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Nigeria will continue to prioritize economic development.

"Infrastructure is an urgent requirement ... and the focus of cooperation with China."

Shi Yongjie, an expert at the China-Africa Development Fund, said, "Premier Li stressed in his speech at the African Union headquarters on Monday that infrastructure construction is key to Africa's development."

Chinese enterprises have repaired 4,500 km of rail lines in Nigeria since 1995, Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said on Wednesday.

Nigeria leads the continent in key infrastructure projects involving Chinese enterprises, said Gao, who was accompanying Li on the visit.

There was close cooperation between Chinese enterprises and Nigerian telecommunications operators to ensure that Nigeria's mobile phone penetration rate reached 91 percent in 2013, rising from less than 1 percent in 2001.

Nigeria has become China's third-largest trade partner and second-largest export market in Africa, while China is Nigeria's third-largest trade partner.

Two-way trade reached $13.6 billion in 2013, almost five times the figure in 2005, Gao said.

Li arrived in Abuja on Tuesday evening from Ethiopia on the second leg of his four-nation African tour that also includes Angola and Kenya.

In Abuja, he will attend the 2014 World Economic Forum on Africa, dubbed "Africa's Davos", and meet other African leaders.

China, West can be partners, not rivals in Africa's development

Africa, the last continent on Earth that suffers pervasive poverty while is widely labelled as a land of vim and vigor, has been busy lately greeting high-ranking officials from Western developed nations and Asian economic powerhouses.

It's noteworthy that the ongoing four-nation tour of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has practically overlapped those of US Secretary of State John Kerry and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Coincidentally, Ethiopia and Angola, two legs of Li's Africa tour, have also been part of Kerry's itinerary.

That coincidence may lead to a rash assumption that the world's economic heavyweights are engaged in a fierce race to grab their share of the most promising continent.

Biased people in the West tend to see China, a late comer to Africa, as a rising contender and smear it as the new colonist that snatches natural resources to fit its own development agenda as Western powers did centuries ago.

Such misgivings only attest to the West's poor knowledge about the real story of the China-Africa cooperation.

The unremitting and ever-robust China-Africa partnership comes from shared inspiration for common development and improvement of people's livelihood.

That effort, as defined by Li and African leaders in a joint statement on Monday, welcomes diversification of Africa's cooperative partners, or "a third party" in Africa "on the basis of its need, consent and participation."

Such cooperation's openness and inclusiveness are also proved by increasing joint ventures on the continent financed by China and other countries, which is distinct from the old Western version featuring snatching the spear of influences and stopping the outsiders from coming in.

Furthermore, politicizing China's normal business cooperation with Africa is doomed, as enhancing people's livelihood is pursued by two sides, whose economies are highly complementary and impossible to be alienated.

The strategic partnership of China and Africa, with an eye to benefit both their own peoples and the globe at large, will thus enjoy more tenacity and longer duration.

Promoting economic ties with Africa is by no means a zero-sum game for China and the West. The vast continent, full of commercial potentials and business opportunities, is large enough to accommodate competent companies from all countries on an equal footing.

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