“China supports and will keep supporting Togo’s efforts for development but also to boost maritime safety and security,” China’s Ambassador to Togo said on October 12, 2016, on the sidelines of the extraordinary summit of the African Union on Maritime Security.

“China is the Africa’s first trade partner; we therefore care a lot about these issues,” the diplomat said while recalling that maritime security, in Africa especially, is primordial for his country.

Beijing is willing to support financially and provide equipment to Gulf nations to prevent piracy which occurs in Somalia to expend to the region. Let’s recall that African coasts and those of the Gulf of Guinea especially have become non-right zones where 90% of goods traded worldwide passes. It is thus to protect its maritime space from theft and aggressions that Africa decided to organize this summit which began on October 10 and is to end on Oct. 15.

Alain Okpeitcha