The four-day third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo will kick off in Changsha on the 29th, as the last groups of exhibitors arrived in Changsha one after another. As one of the most important economic and trade exchanges between China and African countries this year, Hunan is welcoming foreign friends and embracing the world with confidence.
Hunan is an important frontier of China’s people-to-people exchanges and cooperation with Africa, and its trade with Africa has made remarkable progress in recent years. According to Changsha Customs statistics, from January to May this year, Hunan’s import and export to Africa was 27.01 billion yuan, an increase of 54.5 percent over the same period last year. Last year, Hunan’s import and export to Africa reached 55.66 billion yuan, an increase of 42.8% over 2021, ranking eighth in China and first in central and western provinces.
Not long ago, the first batch of inbound exhibits for the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo arrived in Changsha after completing customs clearance procedures. Black tea from South Africa, moisturizer and family porridge powder from Kenya, baobab fruit powder from Namibia and horn crafts from Uganda will appear at the exhibition.
According to the relevant person in charge of Changsha Customs, the first batch of exhibits entered the country using the “integrated” customs clearance mode, from Africa to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport port, enterprises through the “single window of international trade” independently choose to declare at the Xingsha Customs in Changsha, simplifying the procedures of port clearance, compress the port clearance time, and greatly improve the customs clearance efficiency.
It is understood that centering on the establishment of a long-term mechanism for economic and trade exchanges and cooperation with Africa, Hunan has given full play to the role of the two major platforms of the pilot zone for in-depth economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa and the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, and accelerated the construction of a new pattern of all-round opening up with the focus on integrating into the joint construction of the “Belt and Road”. Yang Yi, director of the first District of the Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce, said that the Expo and the pilot zone complement each other and promote each other, inject new momentum into China-Africa practical cooperation, promote the rapid growth of Hunan’s trade with Africa, and steadily advance production capacity cooperation.
Food security has always been a major concern in some parts of Africa. As the main grain producing area in China, Hunan has a long history of rice cultivation. In recent years, the seed industry enterprises supported by Hunan have successfully planted hybrid rice in 16 African countries, and carried out breeding, high-yield demonstration, large-scale planting and technology transfer cooperation in 11 countries, realized the commercialization of hybrid rice, and achieved both increased production and income in local areas.
Construction machinery is a shining “business card” of Hunan. Yang Yi introduced that relying on Hunan’s advantageous industries such as equipment manufacturing, energy mining, road and bridge housing construction, Hunan has fully participated in Africa’s infrastructure construction, and undertaken a number of projects such as Senegal’s competitive wrestling arena, Algeria’s North-South highway, and Uganda’s Karuma hydropower Station. In some key areas, major ports and node cities in Africa, we will promote the construction of overseas warehouses and warehouse collection systems.
Hunan, which is not near the sea or the border, can not promote the steady growth of Hunan and Africa trade without the construction of convenient logistics system. Shen Yumou, director of the Department of Commerce of Hunan Province, said that Hunan strives to build international logistics channels such as international air cargo, river-sea combined transport, rail-sea combined transport, ASEAN cargo, and China-Europe Express, so as to provide convenient logistics services for buying, selling and selling all over the world by sea, land and air.
This year, Hunan formulated the implementation plan of the relevant counterpart contact mechanism, requiring each city and state counterpart to contact two African countries and establish a performance sharing mechanism. The Changsha economic and trade delegation visited Nigeria and Uganda to grab orders, expand the market and consolidate bilateral economic and trade cooperation. “I have mastered a lot of first-hand information through the visit and laid the foundation for future business cooperation through performance sharing.” Kang Zhenlin, head of the Changsha economic and trade delegation and vice mayor, said that this mechanism is conducive to stimulating the initiative and creativity of the work of cities and states.
The reporter learned that the upcoming third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo will arrange more than 40 kinds of activities, covering green infrastructure, medicine and health, agricultural and food products, women and youth, vocational education and other cooperation areas. Among them, a number of “firsts” such as the release of the China-Africa Trade index, the high-quality China-Africa Belt and Road Cooperation achievement Exhibition, and the China-Africa Women’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Achievement Exhibition attracted much attention.
Since 2019, Hunan has successfully held two China-Africa Economic and Trade fairs, with a total of 216 signed projects worth 43.02 billion US dollars. “The China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo has become a new platform for pooling resources between China and Africa, central and local governments and market parties, highlighting the sharing of results, policy issuance and project cooperation, and promoting the practical docking of Chinese and African enterprises.” Shen Yumou said that Hunan will take the opportunity of hosting the meeting to help China-Africa economic and trade cooperation go deeper.