On June 30th 2023, Prof. Tang Xiaoyang released a report entitled “China-Africa development cooperation for the agricultural value chain: Drives and approaches after COVID-19” during the High-Level Dialogue on China-Africa Agri-Food Value Chain Cooperation, which is held as a part of the 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in Shangcha, Hunan Province. This report is an outcome of the Partnership for Enhancing Export Capacity of Africa to China (PEECAC) project by the International Trade Center (ITC) of the United Nations. The research team of this report is made up of the 8th Cohort of the Nexgen-Forum Scholars.
The COVID-19 pandemic seriously disrupted global supply chains and affected movement and trade. Despite these challenges, agricultural cooperation between China and Africa has been progressing during the past few years and has developed new characteristics in the post-COVID-19 period.
This report aims to identify bilateral efforts to promote agricultural development along the value chain and to analyse trends therein. Africa’s agricultural sector demonstrates huge potential, but faces numerous obstacles that require action and aid from various stakeholders, and Chinese enterprises with decades of experience operating in Africa are ready to upgrade their investments and increase collaboration.
Through surveys and interviews, we find that recent China-Africa agricultural cooperation has significantly increased the use of advanced technologies such as remote sensing, drones, gene sequencing, and renewable energy in addition to pragmatic technical improvements.
Another notable trend is that China has become a rapidly growing market for high-quality agricultural products from Africa thanks to e-commerce and an evolving culinary culture.
While this report finds a strong market momentum for further China-Africa cooperation in the agricultural sector, it also shows that specialization and coordination along the agri-product value chain should be enhanced.
The full report can be downloaded here：
