by Justice Lee Adoboe

ACCRA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- China now plays a significant role in global multilateralism, a Ghanaian international politics expert said.

Emmanuel Akwetey, executive director of Accra-based think-tank the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), described the new development as "timely," in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday.

"China is getting stronger...in many ways and the kind of investments it is putting into Africa is significant," the expert observed.

In December 2015, Chinese and African leaders attending the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in South Africa signed an action plan to strengthen China-Africa cooperation and promote the development of Africa in the next three years.

China offered 60 billion U.S. dollars of funding support to ensure the implementation of the package of programs, which covered various areas including industrialization, agricultural modernization, financial services, green development, poverty reduction and others.

Evaluating China's policy of opening up, the expert pointed out that China's growth from the inception of the policy, more than 30 years ago, had been phenomenal, with a lot of achievements.

"So we can say opening up has been big and it is a great success," he observed, adding that European countries such as France, Germany and Britain, among others, were all engaging on many fronts.

"It is growing in strength economically, politically, diplomatically, in trade, finance, development; and the indicators are stronger so it has become a world power in everything," the expert said, adding "so I think China has risen and is rising."