The 5th Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation Welcomes Friends from Africa

The 5th Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation was held in Guangzhou on July 9th. Liu Guozhong, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, addressed the opening ceremony.

Co-organized by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the People’s Government of Guangdong Province, the Forum welcomed a total of about 350 political leaders from African countries and officials of local governments and relevant institutions from China and Africa. Revolving around the theme of “Contributing Local Strength for High Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future,” the guests conducted in-depth discussions, shared experience, and envisioned a shared future around three topics, namely, industrial cooperation, talent development, and green innovation, contributing their wisdom to promoting local government cooperation and building a closer China-Africa community with a shared future.

Wang Yanxia, Vice President of the BPAFFC, delivered a speech titled “Deepen the Cooperation on Talent Development, Create a Great Future for China and Africa” at the talent training sub-forum. She reviewed the long-standing friendship between the BPAFFC and African countries since its establishment over 40 years ago, highlighting the fruitful outcomes of local government cooperation on talent development and people-to-people exchanges. She shared the experience and practices of the BPAFFC in deepening cooperation with African countries; for example, the BPAFFC organized the “Silk Road Community Building Initiative” agricultural technology training and hosted the seminar for government officials of African countries as a way of strengthening cooperation in talent training, and held the “iBeijing” exchange events targeting Africans living in Beijing. She expressed the hope to jointly cultivate successors for the cause of China-Africa friendship and continue the traditional friendship between the two regions, and called for joint efforts to hold an African cultural and tourism exhibition, a China-Africa story sharing event, and a dialogue among historical cities.

At the industrial cooperation sub-forum, Li Ziteng, Deputy District Mayor of Pinggu District of Beijing, introduced that the district, as an important agricultural base and ecological conservation area in Beijing, is endowed with the mission to build a first-class agricultural district and lead the way in rural revitalization and agricultural and rural modernization. He said that the district is striving to strengthen international exchanges and cooperation in the modern seed industry, food, agriculture-related trade, and cultural exchanges and promote the construction of China-Africa agricultural cooperation pilot zones and other projects in an endeavor to further deepen the China-Africa friendship.