China launches first technical trade service platform for Africa

CHANGSHA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The China-Africa Technical Measures to Trade Research and Evaluation Base was on Wednesday launched in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, according to Changsha Customs.

It is China's first technical trade service platform for Africa. The signing ceremony for this base was held at the Summit on High-quality Development of Non-tariff Measures to Trade during the ongoing fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE).

According to the Yuhua administration committee of the Changsha area of the China (Hunan) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the main functions of the base include information collection, advisory services, impact surveys, and promotion of standardization.

The base has a team of 139 experts in the fields of China-Africa trade and economy, international finance and taxation, testing and standardization, engineering machinery, rail transportation equipment, and agricultural food.

With the help of a digital platform, the base will automate the capturing of notifications of technical trade measures of 54 African countries to provide both intelligent support and technical trade information sharing services.

The base will carry out the collection, collation and analysis of information on technical trade measures of products, report risk warning information, and inform relevant enterprises and industry associations of the latest technical trade measures in Africa, in order to provide support for the transformation and upgrading of enterprises.