Since 2017, under the leadership of the CPC central committee with Xi Jinping as its core, MOFCOM has firmly strengthened its consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment. It genuinely implemented the spirits of the 19th CPC National Congress, studied the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, carried out new development idea, accelerated the implementation of Ten China-Africa Cooperation Plans and pushed forward China-Africa trade and economic relations.
　　
1.Implementation of Ten Cooperation Plans Accelerated
The two sides have focused on the mainline of implementing the Ten Cooperation Plans, made close contacts to coordinate resources from all sides and jointly pushed more than two thirds of the ten cooperation plans to be completed. Regarding industrialization cooperation plan, the construction of China-Africa trade and economic cooperation zones was speeded up. China increased investment in Africa’s processing and manufacturing, resources development, and commercial logistics areas and its lever effect and spillover effect for the host country development has further appeared. On infrastructure cooperation plan, China has been active in pushing Africa’s integration process and enhancing enterprises to join Africa’s regional connectivity construction through the integration mode of construction and operation. A group of large infrastructure projects have been built including Jibouti-Addis Ababa Railway, and Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway. Remarkable progress has also been made on China-Africa trade and investment facilitation, agricultural modernization, poverty reduction, public health, cultural and people-to-people exchanges. The African side highly applauded the implementation progress at the 12th Senior Officials’ Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in November 2017.
　　
2.Frequent high-level visits build consensus and strengthen cooperation
Since 2017, leaders of our party and country have visited South Africa, Angola, Zambia, Senegal, Chad and Tanzania. Leaders of African countries like Egypt, Rwanda, Madagascar, Gambia, Djibouti and Sao Tome and Principe also visited China. Kenya and Ethiopia also attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. MOFCOM has undertaken major high-official visits in commercial areas and supported foreign leaders’ China trip. The visits have cemented traditional friendship between China and African countries, strengthened strategy matchmaking, built consensus and pushed pragmatic China-Africa trade and economic cooperation.
　　
3. Major projects promoted by intergovernmental cooperation mechanism
Since 2017, MOFCOM has worked with its counterparts in Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Ghana, Uganda, Chad and Sao Tome and Principe to hold the 1st bilateral joint commission on trade and commerce. MOFCOM has regularly held the Chinese work group meeting of China-Angola Trade and Commerce Leading Committee and established a Chinese cross-sectional work group for China-Angola financing cooperation; Five coordination meetings for China-South Africa Joint Commission have been held to prepare for the 2nd meeting of China-South Africa Joint Commission. Through establishment and improvement of bilateral cooperation mechanism, the two sides have focused on implementing the consensus reached by leaders of both sides in trade and economic areas, docked the economic development plans, negotiated on major projects and events and strived for pragmatic fruits in multiple areas.
　　
4.China-Africa trade gradually picks up
In 2017, China and Africa continued extending bilateral trade and upgrading facilitation level. In January-December, the trade value of China-Africa amounted to US$170 billion, up 14% year on year. Among these, China’s imports from Africa grew rapidly with a value of US$75.3 billion, up 33% year on year; China’s exports to Africa registered US$94.7 billion, up 3% year on year. China’s trade value with its first three largest trading partners--South Africa, Angola and Nigeria grew up by 12%, 45% and 30% respectively year on year. China and Mauritius announced to start the China-Mauritius FTA negotiations in 2017. The China-Mauritius FTA will be the first FTA connecting China and African countries after its completion and it will upgrade China-Mauritius trade and investment cooperation and extend new areas for China-Africa cooperation.

5.Highlights of investment and contracted projects spring up
In January-December 2017, the Chinese enterprises made non-financial direct investment of US$3.1 billion in Africa; the newly-signed value of the Chinese contracted projects in Africa registered US$76.5 billion with a turnover of US$51.2 billion. A group of major projects have actively made progress. With US$2.65 billion, China Molybdenum announced to acquire Freeport-McMoran’s 56% equity of TFM whose annual outputs of copper and cobalt were 204,000 tons and 16,000 tons respectively; Morocco Rabat Tower Project has been signed with a designed height of 250 metres and will be a modern landmark in Morocco hopefully; The Adama Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park with an area of 1.2 square kilometers has completed the beginning preparation and is expected to commence recently; Maputo Cross-sea Bridge with a contract value of US$790 million is open to traffic officially in 2018 and will be the largest large-span suspension bridge in Africa after its completion.

6.Fruitful Achievements by China-Africa financial cooperation
In 2017, the People’s Bank of China made RMB settlement with central bank in Zambia, countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Mauritus incorporated RMB into their foreign exchange reserve and RMB could make free exchange with local currency in Kenya. The Bank of China Luanda branch opened officially and it became the first Chinese-invested bank in Angola. China-Congo(Brazzaville) African Bank--the first joint venture financial institution set up the first branch in Pointe Noire to support Pointe Noire economic special zone, mining port and oil projects. The Bank of China Johannesburg branch issued the first African offshore RMB bond--the rainbow bond with a value of 1.5 billion yuan within a period of three years. That has been actively responded by international investors and the subscriptions were more than 2.13 times, marking that the offshore RMB has extended to the African market and is a milestone for RMB internationalization.
　
In 2018, MOFCOM will genuinely implement the spirits of the 19th CPC National Congress and the deployment of the central economic meeting, under the guidance of Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the idea of business reform and development in new times, strengthen horizontal collaboration and vertical support and make sure the ten cooperation plans between China and African countries will be accomplished with high quality as scheduled. Meanwhile, we will take the opportunity of the new session of China-Africa Cooperation Forum to design and promote China-Africa trade and economic cooperation and make greater contribution to the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the development of the open world economy.

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