Zhang Qian

zhqcindy@163.com

SHENZHEN Party chief Wang Weizhong met with Kassim Majaliwa, prime minister of Tanzania, who arrived in Shenzhen yesterday for a two-day visit to strengthen exchanges between the African country and Shenzhen.

During the meeting at the Wuzhou Guest House, Wang said that the Shenzhen government will support its outstanding enterprises investing in Tanzania in multiple fields, such as trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchanges.

Today, the prime minister will visit several key local corporations to gain more knowledge about the economic and social development the city has achieved in the past decades.

Shenzhen has been actively engaging with African countries in many ways and contributing its own efforts to assist African countries, according a report of the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily yesterday.

A number of Shenzhen entrepreneurs attended the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that ended Tuesday, making suggestions on how to contribute to efforts aiding African countries.

Just before Majaliwa’s visit to Shenzhen, the president of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, toured Huawei’s research institution in Beijing on Sept. 2. The president signed a memorandum with the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant on a project known as the “Future Seed.”

Du Zhaojiang, founder and chairman of Transsion Holdings, a provider of smart and mobile devices in Shenzhen, delivered two speeches at the High-level Dialogue Between Chinese and African Leaders and Business Representatives as well as the Sixth Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs in Beijing, a sideline event of the FOCAC summit.

Mobile phones produced by Transsion Holdings are popular among residents in major African cities.

The brand has taken the largest share of the mobile phone market in African countries, according to the report.

“Our company has made it a long-term goal to participate in the trend of the win-win China-Africa cooperation as early as 2008 and has been cooperating with local partners in Africa over the past decade,” Du told the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily.

Tian Liang, CEO of NewTranx, a Shenzhen-based manufacturer of intelligent translation machines, displayed the company’s latest products for both Chinese and African entrepreneurs at the event in Beijing.

“Communication is the basis of all exchanges of talent, capital and foreign trade, so we are contributing our own effort in linking China with African partners,” said Tian.

This July, bringing Shekou’s experiences of economic success, China Merchants Group and China Merchants Port Holdings collaborated with the Djibouti Government to jointly set up an international free trade park in this African country.

The free trade park has not only provided job opportunities for local residents, but also enhanced the country’s economy by introducing the export processing industry.

“Shenzhen is the pioneer of China’s reform and opening up, and many Shenzhen enterprises have both gained economic benefits in Africa and helped these countries develop at the same time,” said Liu Xing, director of the international liaison department of Shenzhen Foreign Economic, Trade and Investment Development Promotion Association.

Liu said that the association will further help Shenzhen companies settle in African countries, and he believes that the city’s experience in reform and opening up can help the African society take giant leaps in both economic and social development.