Posted on :Friday , 1st July 2022

AS trade relations between Tanzania and China continue to grow, the former is planning to open up another consulate in China's financial hub-Shanghai.

Already, Tanzania has a consulate in Guangzhou, which is operating under the coordination of the Embassy situated in Beijing which is the administrative capital of China.

This was revealed on 20th June 2022 by the Director General of African Affairs in the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wu Peng during an exclusive interview.

He said, successful completion of the move will significantly rise the economic and trade cooperation between the 2 countries that has seen a steady growth despite the eruption of Covid-19 pandemic.

"It's gratifying to see that our economic cooperation withstood the test of the Covid-19 pandemic, the bilateral trade continued to expand with the volume in 2020 and 2021 growing respectively by 9.5% and 47% to 6.74 billion US dollars," he said.

Mr Wu also commended President Samia Suluhu Hassan for her continued efforts to ensure Tanzania fosters a more favourable business environment, as a result of the achievements that have been attained so far.

"We believe there are a lot of potentials to tap, China will take further steps to increase imports from Tanzania, and encourage more companies to invest here," added Mr Wu.

Expounding further, the senior official said Tanzania is on China's priority list on economic and trade promotions and that currently, the Asian giant is exploring means to expand the import of soybeans from the East African country.

According to him, China is currently working on pulling efforts from Chinese financial institutions and big food producing companies to support the Tanzanian soybean Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

He noted further that the 2 countries are also finalising negotiations on an agreement to export Tanzanian aqua products to China.

"This is part of efforts to ensure Tanzania is benefiting from part of the 40 billion US dollar pledge of the Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in November last year," added Mr Wu.

He noted that, already, the China's Minister for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi has met twice with his Tanzanian counterpart Ambassador Liberata Mulamula, where they've touched upon the actualisation of FOCAC eight outcomes in Tanzania.

According to him, since its establishment in 2000, FOCAC has made huge strides and achieved remarkable outcomes in Africa. By 2019, the stock of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI's) to Africa reached nearly 50 billion US dollars, which is almost 100 times of 2000.

"In 2021, China-Africa trade topped 250 billion US dollars, which is 25 times the amount recorded in 2000.

Again, from January to April this year, China's FDI to Africa was recorded at 1.12 billion US dollars," he said. Adding; "Some of the areas of Chinese investment in Africa include construction, mining, manufacturing, finance, agriculture and forestry, and service.

Chinese investment in Africa not only creates jobs, but also supports local industrial development and promotes economic transformation"