III. Forms of Foreign Aid

China offers foreign aid in eight forms: complete projects, goods and materials, technical cooperation, human resource development cooperation, medical teams sent abroad, emergency humanitarian aid, volunteer programs in foreign countries, and debt relief.

Complete Projects

Complete projects refer to productive or civil projects constructed in recipient countries with the help of financial resources provided by China as grants or interest-free loans. The Chinese side is responsible for the whole or part of the process, from study, survey, to design and construction, provides all or part of the equipment and building materials, and sends engineers and technical personnel to organize and guide the construction, installation and trial production of these projects. After a project is completed, China hands it over to the recipient country.

Complete projects are a major form of China's foreign aid. From 1954, China had helped Vietnam and DPRK repair war-damaged railways, roads, ports, bridges and urban transport facilities, and assisted them in building a number of basic industrial projects, thus making great contributions to their post-war reconstruction and economic development. Later, foreign aid in complete projects expanded in scale and scope, and accounted for a bigger proportion among China's foreign aid expenditure. At present, they account for 40% of China's foreign aid expenditure.

By the end of 2009, China had helped developing countries construct and complete over 2,000 complete projects closely linked to local people's life and production, covering industry, agriculture, culture and education, health care, communication, power supply, energy, transportation and others.

[Table 1 Sectorila Distribution of Complete Projects Completed with the Help of China (by the end of 2009)]

Goods and Materials

They include materials for production and living, technical products or single-item equipment, and necessary technical services covered by foreign aid financial resources provided by China.

China started foreign aid by providing goods and materials. In the 1950s and 1960s, China was short of goods and materials at home. But to help Asian and African countries win national independence and develop their economies, it provided these countries with a large amount of goods and materials. In addition, China provided supporting equipment and materials for complete projects. China always uses products of the highest quality for foreign aid, and the materials it provides include machinery, equipment, medical devices, testing equipment, transport vehicles, office equipment, food and medicine. These supplies meet recipient countries' urgent needs in life and production; and some equipment, such as civil airplanes, locomotives and container-testing equipment, have helped recipient countries improve their equipment capacity and develop their industries.