Interest in Chinese media 'increasing' on continent

Chinese culture will gain popularity in Africa with increasing economic interaction between the two sides, creating a market for Chinese media content on the African continent, said Koos Bekker, chairman of the South African media company Naspers.

Bekker also said his company will invest more in meeting the needs of Africans by bringing in more Chinese programs.

Naspers currently broadcasts 11 Chinese channels across Africa, and the company "will carry more in the future" and also "would like to make more programs together" with China, Bekker said.

The programs have two audiences: homesick overseas Chinese and Africans who would like to learn some Chinese language to facilitate their communication.

Bekker said the latter group is growing because people interact more with China in business dealings, so "they feel the need to learn the language and learn a little bit about the culture".

"I see in all of Africa that China must have closer cooperation in the future," he said, "As you start doing business together, you start getting an interest" in cultural matters, he said.

It's "a common phenomenon of a country that economic power comes first, and after that the cultural influence", Bekker added.

"I think our audience is interested in people, in the long term, with whom they do business," he said, adding that people have begun to ask themselves, "Shouldn't I learn more about the culture?"

Currently, he said: "The Chinese news is always economic news. That needs to change.

"We need to start to report about Chinese sports stars, Chinese movie stars, the social trends in China, such as what we report about the UK and the US. And I think that phase is now starting. For me the biggest thing is just going beyond that we are just business colleagues and becoming friends.

"So, I think it goes hand-in-hand - first business then friendship, then sort of human sympathy."

There are misconceptions between Chinese and Africans, but that will be broken down by more exchanges, Bekker said.