China-Africa cooperation brings new opportunities for businesses

Chinese and African entrepreneurs will share win-win cooperation opportunities, said Zhang Shaogang, vice-chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, at a news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

The Eighth Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, an important part of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), will help to elevate trade relations between China and Africa to a new level, Zhang said.

Since its inception in 2003, the Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs has been held every three years, and this year, it has attracted 382 representatives from China and 408 from Africa.

Aligned with the theme of the 2024 FOCAC summit, which will be held from Sept 4 to 6, the Eighth Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, which will be held on Sept 6 in Beijing, focuses on two topics, namely the promotion of integration of industrial and supply chains and the promotion of the development of emerging industries.

On promoting the integration of industrial and supply chains, China is the only country with industries across all categories. Africa is the continent home to most developing countries. China and Africa enjoy great complementarity and broad space for cooperation.

"When it comes to supply and industrial chains, I would really like to see entrepreneurs from both China and Africa make good use of economic and trade cooperation platforms, such as the China International Supply Chain Expo, to improve the integration of industrial and supply chains and jointly oppose protectionism and keep industrial and supply chains stable and smoothly," said Zhang.

China is accelerating the process of nurturing new quality productive forces and Africa is actively exploring its own path to modernization and independent development.

"Africa and China share great potential for cooperation in such areas as digital economy, green development, and artificial intelligence. We hope entrepreneurs from China and Africa step up cooperation in the areas of emerging sectors and work together to promote the development of new industries," Zhang said.

On digital economy, China has been actively supporting African countries in building their digital infrastructure. Since the launch of the FOCAC, Chinese companies have helped African countries provide network services to nearly 700 million users, said Sun Xiao, secretary-general of the China Chamber of International Commerce.

At the same time, Chinese companies actively worked in e-commerce, shared experience in digital payment, smart logistics and other areas, and helped countries, including Ethiopia and South Africa, to build their e-commerce ecosystems, Sun said.

China and African countries are good friends, good brothers, and good partners. In recent years, with the strategic guidance of leaders from both China and Africa, great results in economic and great cooperation have been achieved.

In 2023, economic trade volume between China and Africa reached $282.1 billion, up nearly 11 percent from 2021, hitting a record high for two consecutive years.

Over the past three years, Chinese companies have created over 1.1 million jobs in Africa.

"These numbers demonstrate that economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa will maintain a strong growth momentum," said Lin Honghong, director-general of the Department of International Relations of CCPIT.

China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, and trade between China and Africa rose 5.5 percent year-on-year to 1.19 trillion yuan ($166.6 billion) between January and July this year, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.