COMMON PURSUIT OF DEVELOPMENT

(From left to right) Former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his wife, Iriana, take part in a historical walk with leaders from Asia and Africa as part of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 1955 Asian-African conference in Bandung, West Java April 24, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Setting off from the heart of Zambia's copper belt in Kapiri Mposhi, locomotives rumbled east along a 1,860-km railway to the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

It is through this transnational railway, popularly known as the TAZARA and distinguished as one of China's biggest aid projects in the 1970s, that landlocked Zambia finds its way out to the Indian Ocean.

The rail link serves as a typical case of China's decades-long support for Africa's development, and a telling example of the increasingly strong economic dimension of the ever closer cooperation between the two dynamic continents.

With the days of global colonialism and the Cold War long gone, the focus of Asia-Africa cooperation has shifted from political aspirations to economic ambitions, but the Bandung Spirit remains relevant.

As disparity between the rich and the poor remains gaping, noted Professor Yang Baoyun, a well-known scholar with Thammasat University of Thailand, it is important for Asian and African countries to reinvigorate the Bandung Spirit and unite in their new common struggle, this time for economic prosperity.

The two continents have already become robust powerhouses for global growth, and their combined economic output reached 29 trillion US dollars last year, accounting for 37.5 percent of the world's total and equaling 47 times the 1970 volume.

Given that they make up nearly half of the world's landmass and 70 percent of the population and their economies are highly complementary, their cooperation has enormous potential yet to be explored.

However, the way forward is fraught with pitfalls and hurdles. While some are faced with the so-called middle-income trap, some others are still exploring their own development paths.

Asian and African countries, Xi suggested, need to boost win-win cooperation and create the "one plus one greater than two" effect, by aligning their development strategies and translating their economic complementarity into a driving force for common growth.

In addition, the Chinese president called for closer South-South and South-North cooperation, and urged the developed countries to honor their aid pledges for their developing peers and offer more assistance with no political strings attached.

Xi's Wednesday speech, particularly his proposal, opened up a new chapter in Asia-Africa interaction, as the content and prospect of the cross-continental cooperation has become ever richer and brighter, said Tang Zhimin, director of China-ASEAN Studies under the Bangkok-based Panyapiwat Institute of Management.