South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Benjamin Takpiny
The Vice Chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), Zhang Shaogang has urged Chinese and African entrepreneurs to make good use of economic and trade cooperation platforms.
“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 at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.
Zhang said that Chinese and African entrepreneurs will share win-win cooperation opportunities
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 that Africa and China share great potential for cooperation in many areas that includes 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,” he said.
Zhang said that this year, more than 400 representatives of the business community from more than 40 African countries are expected at this meeting.
“China and Africa will exchange views on issues of common interest, forge consensus on cooperation and jointly discuss cooperation plans,” he said.
He disclosed that China will implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which wants to further open up to non-institutional groups, deepen cooperation in the industrial supply chain, and to better realize economic integration, development ties and achievement sharing in Central Africa.
Zhang said that they will contribute more to consolidating the China-Africa comprehensive strategic partnership and building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future
He also said that the entrepreneurs’ conference will have three opening sessions, thematic speeches and closing sessions.
Chinese and African leaders will deliver speeches explaining how to strengthen China-Africa friendship and how to enhance cooperation.
Sun Xiao, Secretary General of the China Chamber of International Commerce said China has been actively supporting African countries in building their digital infrastructure.
He said that since the launch of FOCAC, Chinese companies have helped African countries provide network services to nearly 700 million users.
“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,” said Sun
The Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs has been held every three years since it’s inception in 2003, and this year conference 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 home to the most developing countries. China is accelerating the process of nurturing new quality productive forces and Africa is actively exploring its own path to modernization and independent development.
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.
