Chinese, African firms ink fruit procurement deals worth about RMB 70 mln at conference in Changsha, Hunan

A staff member stamps the label on a box with fresh avocados at Sunripe factory in Limuru Town, Kiambu County, Kenya, on Aug. 2, 2022. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui)

Chinese and African enterprises have reached fruit procurement and strategic cooperation agreements valuing about 70 million yuan at the 2022 China-Africa Fruits Promotion Conference held on Tuesday in Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan province, Chinanews.com reported on Tuesday.

As one of the major activities under the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE), the conference aims to create an exchange and trade cooperation platform for facilitating the fruit industry bewteen China and Africa.

In 2021, China imported 400,000 tonnes of fresh fruits from Africa, including oranges, grapes, apples and avocados, involving an import value of more than 500 million U.S. dollars, according to Lu Fang, president of China Fruit Marketing Association.

"China and African countries have different agricultural resources, and there are great differences and strong complementarity in the structure of fruit varieties", said Lu Fang at the conference, who added that China and Africa are expected to carry out all-round cooperation in the fruit industry. For example, Chinese enterprises could invest in building fruit production base in Africa, and set up post-harvest processing facilities as well as packaging and cold storage plants.

Enterprise representatives from Kenya, South Africa and other African countries introduced the development of fruit industries at the conference, hoping to expand the export of African fruits to China. At the same time, several Chinese enterprises introduced their relevant business information and announced their purchase demand for African fruits.

In addition, "an enterprises' alliance on fruit trade with Africa" was officially launched at the conference, which is expected to create a new platform for cooperation between Africa's high-quality fruit resources and China's large-scale potential consumer market.