China has become the second-largest destination for African agricultural exports
China’s agricultural import from African nations has reached 16. 15 billion yuan in the first five months increased by 25.5 per cent from a year ago, according to the General Administration of Customs. Africa’s agricultural exports to China have grown rapidly, and China has become the second-largest country for African agricultural exports.
Agricultural trade between China and Africa increased from 33.3 billion yuan ($ 4.6 billion dollars) in 2012 to 58.6 billion yuan in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 5.8 per cent. In the first five months of this year, the trade volume jumped 20.4 per cent year on year to reach 26.6 billion yuan.
African aquatic products, honey, sesame, peanuts, tobacco, wool, cotton, soybeans, coffee and fruits are stably exported to China.
According to China’s Agricultural Ministry, a few days ago, 315 kilograms of dried wild anchovies from Kenya arrived at Changsha Huanghua International Airport. Changsha Huanghua Airport Customs implemented inspection and quarantine in accordance with regulations and issued an entry inspection and quarantine certificate for this batch of dried anchovies and went through customs clearance and release procedures. This is the first time that China has imported wild anchovy products from Kenya.
Kenya is rich in marine fishery resources, especially anchovies and other small fish species in the offshore area of Mombasa, with high quality and obvious advantages in fishing and production costs. Related Chinese enterprises will further expand the sources of goods in Tanzania, Somalia and other countries in the future, not only supplying high-quality food raw materials to the country but also promoting the development of aquatic product processing industries in Kenya and other countries, providing jobs for local residents.
Huang Caixin, director of the Import and Export Food Safety Department of Changsha Customs, introduced that Kenyan dried anchovies are another African product that Changsha Customs participated in promoting access to, which will help Hunan build a distribution and processing trade centre for non-resource-based products in Africa and will also help promote more The import of high-quality food and agricultural products from Africa will enrich the choices of domestic consumers and promote the development of China-Africa trade.
China and African countries also proposed the establishment of a liaison mechanism for sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) cooperation to strengthen the docking of inspection and quarantine standards and rules, which is key to facilitating African exports of agricultural and food products to China.
More than 180 Chinese and foreign representatives attended the China-Africa Sanitary and Phytosanitary Cooperation Forum held in Changsha.
Shraddha Warde
shraddha.warde@mmactiv.com
