BEIJING, Nov 29 (Reuters) – President Xi Jinping on Monday said China would offer another 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to African countries and would encourage Chinese companies to invest no less than $10 billion in Africa over the next three years.

The pledge of additional vaccine doses – on top of the nearly 200 million that China has already supplied to the continent – comes as concerns intensify over the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus, known as Omicron, which was first identified in southern Africa.

In a speech given via video link at the opening of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Xi also said a China-Africa cross-border yuan centre would be set up to provide African financial institutions with a credit line of $10 billion, without giving further details.

China’s total imports from Africa, one of its key sources of crude oil and mineral supply, will reach $300 billion in the next three years, Xi said, adding that the two sides would cooperate in areas such as health, digital innovation, trade promotion and green development.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom, writing by Tom Daly; Editing by Toby Chopra and Ed Osmond)