Jinhua delegation enhances trade and cultural ties in Africa

JINHUA, CHINA – From March 24 to April 2, a delegation from Jinhua City in east China‘s Zhejiang Province visited Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa.

Traveling from central Zhejiang to the African continent, the delegation met old friends and made new ones, seeking consensus, cooperation and win-win development in a bid to write a new chapter in the city’s industrial cooperation and enhanced trade and people-to-people exchanges with Africa, according to The Information Office of Jinhua City.

At the China-Tanzania Investment Forum & China (Jinhua)-Tanzania Trade and Investment Promotion Conference held on March 27, the Jinhua delegation and more than 260 representatives of local enterprises and institutions signed a number of cooperation agreements involving agricultural machinery, barter trade platform, one-stop procurement of hardware tools and other fields, with the contract value totaling 65 million U.S. dollars.

In recent years, Jinhua has actively participated in the co-development of the Belt and Road Initiative with continuous and deep-level economic cooperation and trade exchanges with African countries.

The city has established trade ties with all African countries and regions, and about 30,000 Jinhua businessmen have been doing business in Africa for many years. There are over 10,000 enterprises engaged in cross-border trade with Africa in the city. Last year, nearly 50,000 African merchants came to Jinhua for goods purchases.

According to data from Jinhua’s customs, from 2010 to 2023, the city’s total exports to Africa increased from 5.84 billion yuan to 106.64 billion yuan, an 18-fold increase in 14 years.

Last year, trade with Africa exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 116.85 billion yuan, accounting for 30.8 percent of Zhejiang’s trade with Africa and ranking first in the field among prefecture-level cities in China.

On March 28, the signing ceremony between Jinhua and Rwanda to deepen vocational education cooperation and the opening ceremony for international students was held in Musanze, Rwanda.

Zhang Yanping, Vice President of Jinhua Polytechnic, said that two professional teaching standards developed by the college and overseas partners have been incorporated into the Rwanda education qualification framework system.

Jinhua Polytechnic has participated in several national and provincial overseas vocational education and training programs, nurturing a group of Rwandan natives who master Chinese and professional skills.

On April 1, the Jinhua delegation visited the Cape Town Grand Theatre in South Africa, which is the sister theater of Zhejiang Wu Opera Art Research Institute. In July last year, when the two sides inked ties, they staged their respective representative performances, whose charm earned rounds of applause.

“As a hub for cooperation and exchanges between China and Africa, Jinhua has been carrying out exchanges and cooperation in culture, tourism and art, with fruitful achievements,” said Xu Peng, a Senior Official with Zhejiang’s culture and tourism bureau and Vice Chairman of the World Tourism Alliance.

With the advancement and deepening of China–Africa cultural cooperation and exchanges, more and more cultural tourism products featuring Zhejiang cultural elements will integrate into China–Africa cultural exchanges, cooperation and mutual learning in the future, Xu said.