China's StarTimes is keeping up its charm offensive and blitz of ingratiating itself with African leaders with the pay-TV operator that met with 18 African leaders at its Beijing headquarters during last week's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit (Focas) held in China.
African presidents and other "distinguished guests" were fawned over as they toured China's StarTimes headquarters in Beijing, where they in turn "expressed their admiration and support" to StarTimes' presence in Africa.
StarTimes president Pang Xinxing personally met 4 African presidents - Malawian president Peter Mutharika, Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi.
StarTimes has been aggressively going after government contracts and joint ventures to roll out digital terrestrial television (DTT) and infrastructure in several African nations, ranging from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi to Zambia.
During the Focas summit, StarTimes helped Mozambique’s national TV station in broadcasting the China-Mozambique Investment Promotion Conference and the presidential press conference in Beijing in Mozambique.
StarTimes also provided signal transmission channels for the Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Cameroon and several other countries for saturated Focas coverage from Beijing.
The first visitor to StarTimes' Beijing headquarters during the Focas summit was Ghana's first lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo on 2 September when StarTimes gave 24 football kits to the Rebecca Foundation to pursue their football dreams.
Later the same day, Lesotho’s prime minister Thomas Thabane and the Chinese ambassador to Lesotho Sun Xianghua went to StarTimes. StarTimes gave Lesotho projector TV sets and solar power generation systems for 10 villages "so that more local villagers can watch television and thus know more about the outside world".
Sierra Leone's president Julius Maada Bio along with his wife, Fatima Maada Bio, and the Chinese ambassador to Sierra Leone, Wu Peng, went to StarTimes on 3 September.
Sierra Leone’s minister of information and communications, Mohamed Rahman Swaray and Gu Xun, managing director of StarTimes Group, signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. Pang Xinxing gave Sierra Leon 50 projector TV sets and solar power generation systems for 50 villages.
Julius Maada Bio said it presents a great potential for Sierra Leonean people to view programs around the world and the government would give StarTimes necessary support to be able to start and to broadcast and that "I look forward to having StarTimes in Sierra Leone".
On 3 September the wife of Malawi's president, Gertrude Mutharika, UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé and StarTimes group vice president Guo Ziqi held a meeting in Beijing, to look at working together to increase HIV/Aids awareness.
On 4 September, Zambia's minister of transport and communications, Brian Mushimba, went to StarTimes, and on 5 September it was the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s minister of communications and media Lambert Mende Omalanga, and minister of economic affairs Joseph Kapika Dikancu who attended the signing ceremony of establishment of joint venture between StarTimes and the DRC.
On 6 September president of the Central African Republic (CAR), Faustin-Archange Touadera visited StarTimes with his wife and an entourage and toured StarTimes' translation and dubbing center, multi-functional studio, and the research institute.
