Under the guidance of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, Hunan actively responds to the ‘Ten Major Cooperation Plans’ of China to Africa. The 4th Investing in Africa Forum (IAF) preparatory work press conference released on August 29 that Hunan-Africa cooperation has achieved fruitful results.
Firstly, expanded trade scale of Hunan to Africa. Hunan and Africa are highly economically complementary. Hunan’s advantageous industries and enterprises can meet the needs of Africa at present. In 2017, the total Hunan-Africa import and export volume was more than 2 billion USD, around three times of that of 2008. Hunan’s major exports to Africa include ceramics, electromechanical products, textile goods, clothing, suitcases, and bags.
Secondly, Hunan’s growing investment to Africa. Hunan government has been exploring ways of cooperation with Africa. The overseas economic and trade industrial park, such as the ‘Ethiopia-Hunan Industrial Park’ has been established. From 2008 to 2017, enterprises from Hunan that have invested in Africa increased to 91. The total investment of all the projects valued at 796,639 million USD. Among the total, China’s investment valued at 717,843 million USD.
Thirdly, deepened cooperation of Hunan with Africa. Since 2015, the number of contract projects of Hunan’s enterprises in Africa has been growing sharply. Africa has accounted for the largest share of Hunan’s overseas contract projects. The annual sum of the newly-signed contracts maintains over 800 million USD. Every year, there will be over 5,000 laborers dispatched to Africa. Hunan undertakes the largest number of Chinese government’s foreign aid training tasks. In 2017, there were more than 4000 trainees. And 75% of them came from Africa.
This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.
Translator: Fang Qi
Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn
