China has taken effective actions to expand the import of African agricultural products

Ethiopia's coffee, Nigeria's peanuts, Tanzania's cashew nuts, Cote d'Ivoire's Cocoa... Africa is rich in agricultural product resources. The output of these characteristic agricultural products ranks first in the world and plays an extremely important role in the export trade of various countries. Expanding and deepening China Africa agricultural trade and economic cooperation is conducive to promoting poverty reduction and benefiting agriculture in Africa, boosting Africa's inclusive growth and sustainable development, and meeting China's diversified market demand.
In 2021, the vision 2035 for China Africa cooperation adopted by the eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China Africa cooperation and the "nine projects" launched and implemented pointed out the direction for the development of China Africa relations and practical cooperation in agriculture and other fields, and injected strong momentum. In addition to trade cooperation, China has further deepened agricultural cooperation and accelerated the construction of a three-dimensional and diversified pattern of China Africa agricultural cooperation by carrying out agricultural technology training, building an agricultural technology demonstration center in Africa, and strengthening investment in Africa.
Full of expectations for deepening cooperation
The trade promotion project in the "nine projects" clearly states that China will establish a "green channel" for African agricultural products to China, accelerate the promotion of quarantine access procedures, further expand the scope of products with zero tariff treatment for the least developed countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, and provide trade financing to support African exports.
China has actively expanded market access for African agricultural products. Since the beginning of this year, Rwanda stevia, South Africa fresh pear and Kenya wild aquatic products have successively obtained export licenses to China.
"China has become the second largest agricultural product export destination in Africa." Cao Derong, President of the China Chamber of Commerce for the import and export of food, native produce and livestock, introduced at the African agricultural products import forum in Changsha a few days ago that in 2021, China's agricultural products imported from Africa reached US $5.03 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.23%, setting a record.
The African agricultural products import forum is hosted by the Ministry of Commerce and the people's Government of Hunan Province, and jointly organized by the Department of Commerce of Hunan Province, the chamber of Commerce for food and soil and the Foreign Trade Development Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce. At this forum, many African guests expressed high appreciation for China Africa agricultural cooperation and looked forward to further deepening bilateral cooperation.
China is South Africa's largest trading partner, and South Africa is also China's largest trading partner in Africa. In recent years, South Africa's exports of oranges, nuts, red wine, beef and other agricultural products to China have increased steadily. China is opening wider and wider to South Africa's high-quality agricultural products. In August last year and February this year, China and South Africa signed the protocol on phytosanitary requirements for citrus and fresh pear exports to China. Xie Shengwen, South African ambassador to China, said that South Africa hopes to continuously deepen economic and trade cooperation with China in agricultural products, expand the export of high-quality agricultural products such as wine, fruit, nuts, meat, fishery products and aloe to China, and promote the export of avocado, blueberry and honey to China.
Peanut is the most important cash crop in Senegal. Thanks to the efficient and practical cooperation between China and Senegal in the peanut field, such as improving varieties, increasing production and training technology, Senegal has become one of the main sources of Chinese peanut imports. Senegal is promoting the road of rejuvenation supported by agricultural modernization. "In recent years, through cooperation with China, Senegal's agricultural output, productivity and competitiveness have been continuously improved, and agricultural modernization has achieved many development results." Musa balde, Minister of agriculture and rural equipment of Senegal, said in a video speech that Senegal would continue to improve the competitiveness of agricultural products and expand exports to China.
"The huge potential of Ethiopia's agricultural products export needs to be released." Sofia CASA, State Minister of the Ministry of agriculture of Ethiopia, said that Ethiopia's coffee, flowers, fruits, vegetables and livestock products have the potential to meet the needs of the Chinese market. He called on Ethiopia and China to strengthen the docking of development strategies and further explore the opportunities for agricultural cooperation.
Release potential, clear direction and ideas
Since the establishment of the China Africa Cooperation Forum, the scale of agricultural products imported by China from Africa has continued to grow. In the view of Yu Zirong, vice president of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, from the perspective of the proportion of African agricultural products in China's total agricultural product imports and the distribution of import countries, there is still great room for expansion of China Africa agricultural product trade.
In order to fully release the potential of bilateral agricultural trade, Yu Zirong proposed to deepen all-round cooperation in the agricultural field between China and Africa, determine the list of key agricultural products imported from Africa and the road map of agricultural products import, and plan specific measures for importing agricultural products; Improve the level of trade facilitation and unblock the import channels of African agricultural products; In addition to trade cooperation, promote the local processing of African agricultural products, so that relevant products can better meet the needs of the Chinese market.
"African countries have a wide area of arable land and fertile land, and can increase the planting and supply of relevant agricultural products such as coffee and cashew nuts according to the needs of the Chinese market." Li Hui, director of Aolan (Shanghai) Trading Co., Ltd., pointed out that in the past decade, the sesame production in Tanzania and Mozambique has increased more than three times, of which 89% Chengdu is supplied to China. She believes that in order to deepen China Africa agricultural cooperation, it is necessary to constantly improve Africa's agricultural technology level, improve the unit yield of crops through fine management, and strengthen cooperation in port and other infrastructure areas to provide logistics support for Africa's agricultural products exports.
In addition, giving play to the advantages of e-commerce can also help the development of China Africa agricultural trade. Since the outbreak of covid-19, China and Africa have effectively promoted the growth of bilateral trade through new trade channels such as e-commerce. For example, the National Pavilion opened by jd.com has solved the problem that overseas commodities have a weak sense of existence in the Chinese consumer market and limited resources are not enough to support the opening of independent stores by creating national business cards, and opened a sales channel for overseas characteristic commodities such as Africa to enter the Chinese market. Fan Lei, vice president of jd.com group, said that jd.com hopes to introduce more and better products with African characteristics to China by opening more African national pavilions.