China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation Achieves Fruitful Results: Third Expo Set to Take Place

Economic Daily, Beijing, June 13th: The third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo will be held in Changsha from June 29th to July 2nd. This is one of the most important exchange activities between China and African countries in the economic and trade field this year. At the press conference held by the State Council Information Office on the 13th, Vice Minister of Commerce Li Fei stated that the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo is an important mechanism for China-Africa economic and trade cooperation and an important window for local economic and trade cooperation with Africa. It is of great significance to build a new development pattern.

Over the past 10 years, China-Africa economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results. According to statistics, the total trade volume between China and Africa has exceeded 2 trillion US dollars, and China has always maintained the status of Africa’s largest trading partner. Chinese enterprises in Africa have newly signed project contracts worth more than 700 billion U.S. dollars, and completed a turnover of more than 400 billion U.S. dollars; China’s direct investment flow in Africa has exceeded 30 billion U.S. dollars, making it the fourth largest source of investment in Africa; sending medical staff to African countries There are about 9,000 team members, more than 100,000 training places are provided, and a number of infrastructure and social and people’s livelihood projects have been completed one after another.

At the same time, the fields of cooperation are becoming more diverse. The field of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation has continued to extend from traditional trade and engineering construction to emerging fields such as digital, green, aerospace, and finance. Chinese companies have actively participated in the construction of digital infrastructure in Africa, and promoted the rapid development of e-commerce, mobile payment, media entertainment and other industries in Africa. China has signed civil air transport agreements with 27 African countries, and successfully built and launched communication and meteorological satellites for Algeria and other countries.

In addition, the cooperation mechanism is becoming more and more perfect. China has signed “One Belt, One Road” cooperation documents with 52 African countries and the African Union Commission, and jointly established several special working groups in the fields of unimpeded trade, investment cooperation, production capacity cooperation, and e-commerce. China actively supports the construction of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and has established an economic cooperation expert group with the Free Trade Area Secretariat to conduct in-depth policy exchanges and experience sharing on China-Africa trade and investment facilitation.

It is understood that the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo has the theme of “seeking common development and sharing the future”, and 8 African countries including Benin, Congo (Kinshasa), Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia are the guests of honor China, Shandong Province and Hubei Province serve as the theme provinces. Up to now, 53 African countries that have diplomatic relations with China, 8 international organizations, 30 domestic provinces, and more than 1,500 central enterprises, business associations, and financial institutions have signed up to participate. There are more than 1,350 exhibitors, an increase of 55% over the previous session. It is expected that there will be 8,000 buyers and professional visitors, and the number of visitors will exceed 100,000.