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GaoFeng: Friends from the media, good afternoon. Welcome to MOFCOM’s regular pressconference. Since I don’t have any announcement to make, we may proceeddirectly to the Q&A session. The floor is open.
Economic Information Daily: We know that the second China-Africa Economic andTrade Expo will be held in Hunan in September. Could you brief us on theoverall arrangements of the Expo and the progress in the preparatory process?
Gao Feng: China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo is one of the important measuresunder the eight major initiatives of China-Africa cooperation announced byPresident Xi Jinping at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-AfricaCooperation, and an important platform for China to carry out economic andtrade cooperation, exchanges and dialogues with African countries. The secondChina-Africa Economic and Trade Expo will be held in Changsha, Hunan Provincefrom September 26 to 28 this year. It will be held both online and offline, andthe main exhibition hall will be located at Changsha International Conventionand Exhibition Center.
The theme of this Expo is "New Start, New Opportunity, New Action".The six African countries of Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa andSenegal will be the countries of honor, and Zhejiang and Jiangxi will be theprovinces of honor.
The Expo will be composed of three parts: conferences, exhibitions andmeetings. The first part is the opening ceremony and China-Africa Economic andTrade Cooperation Forum, which will be attended and addressed by politicaldignitaries from China and Africa, heads of international organizations, andbusiness leaders. The second part is various forums, symposiums and businessmeetings centering around the priority and emerging areas in China-Africa tradeand economic cooperation, such as food and agricultural produce,pharmaceuticals and healthcare, infrastructure, and finance. The third part isexhibition. The planned area for physical exhibition is 64,000㎡,including exhibitions of guests of honor, African brands, commercial products,Chinese provinces and cities, the fruits of China-African trade and economiccooperation, case studies of China-Africa trade and economic cooperation, andpioneering areas of in-depth China-Africa trade and economic cooperation. Up tonow, in addition to the six guest countries of honor, businesses from 28African countries and 34 Chinese provinces and cities have confirmed participation.During the Expo, we will also hold African brands shopping festival, Africancoffee and coffee championship, African products live stream festival, onlinebusiness matching activities. These events will give Chinese businesses andconsumers a better taste of specialty and quality goods from Africa.
For more African businesses to participate, the Expo will offer funding supportto the eligible African companies, and provide volunteer service to those whowill send their products for exhibition but cannot make it to the site. We willalso provide free online exhibition platforms so that the Expo can continueafter the physical exhibitions are over.
MOFCOM will join forces with the Hunan provincial government and other membersof the organizing committee to make sound preparations with regard to guestsinvitation, business and exhibitor recruitment, conference organization, andepidemic control. We will work to make the 2nd China-Africa Economic and TradeExpo a successful expo, one that will inject strong impetus to elevated andresults-oriented China-African trade and economic cooperation.
