The following is a list of recent related contracts:

January p>26-China Offshore Oil Corporation agreed to invest 2.3 billion US dollars to buy shares in an oil and gas field in Nigeria, which is the company's largest overseas acquisition so far.

April p>26-Hu Jintao, president, China signed an offshore oil exploration agreement with Kenya, ending his trip to Africa. The agreement allows CNOOC to explore in six storage areas covering 115,343 square kilometers in northern and southern Kenya. Two days ago, the China government reached a $4 billion mining license contract with Nigeria, including China's promise to provide financial support for economic and technical cooperation, antimalarial drugs and rice.

November p>26-The China-Africa Forum Summit was held in Beijing, and China and African countries signed 16 agreements with a total value of 1.9 billion US dollars. After Hu Jintao proposed to provide 5 billion US dollars in loans to African countries and double the aid by 29, 12 companies in China reached a number of agreements with 11 African governments and companies.

February p>27-Hu Jintao visited African countries again, and signed contracts worth millions of dollars with Cameroon, Liberia, Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Seychelles, which exempted several countries from debts.

September p>27-Shenzhen Energy Investment Co., Ltd. announced plans to cooperate with an African development fund set up by China to build a 2,-kilowatt gas-fired power plant in Ghana at a cost of 1.3 billion yuan (US$ 137.2 million). China launched the African Development Fund in June last year, with an initial scale of $1 billion.

September p>27-China provided $5 billion in loans and infrastructure development projects to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including strategic highway and railway projects worth $3 billion, connecting the country's mineral-rich inland with its southern neighbors and the export corridor of the Atlantic Ocean. The remaining $2 billion is used to revive the country's mining industry.

October p>27-Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the largest commercial bank in China, agreed to invest $5.6 billion to acquire a 2% stake in South African Standard Bank, which is the largest overseas acquisition by China Commercial Bank.