Tanzania has signed five investment deals with China which will see the Asian giant invest over $1.7 billion in the emerging East African country including to build a $1 billion satellite city and $500 million financial centre in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Seen as a mark of China’s growing economic presence in Tanzania, the country’s President Jakaya Kikwete said in a statement on Friday that the investment deals, signed in Beijing on Thursday, will also go to power distribution, and business cooperation.

The satellite city, located on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam and designed to ease congestion in the city’s central business district, will be a self-contained urban zone equipped with water, electricity, roads, banks, schools and hospitals. Both the city and the financial centre are joint projects by the China Railway Jianchang Engineering Company Ltd (CRJE) and Tanzania’s state-run National Housing Corporation.

Tanzania’s state-run power company, TANESCO, also signed a deal with China’s TBEA Hengyang Transformer Co. for a rural electrification project that the president’s office said would be worth “millions of dollars”.

China’s investment in Tanzania reached $2.5 billion at the end of 2013, and between July and September this year totalled $534 million, compared to $124 million during the same period last year.

Reuters reports that in recent years, Chinese companies have signed deals to build a new port, rail network and a 532 km (330 mile) natural gas pipeline.

Tanzania also says it aims to boost its exports to China. From 2012 to 2013, the East African country’s export to the Asian powerhouse totalled $495.74 million, below half the $1.099 billion gained by China.

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