The 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum opened in Changsha on July 25, 2024. Mao Weiming, deputy secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and governor of Hunan Province, met with Mohamed Sabbari, first deputy speaker of the House of Representatives of Morocco, at noon. He led a delegation of political party cadres from North African countries to attend the two events.

Qu Hai, secretary general of the provincial government, joined the meeting.

At noon of July 25, Governor Mao met with Moroccan First Deputy Speaker Mohamed Sabbari.

Governor Mao welcomed the guests and briefed them on the economic and social development of Hunan Province. He noted that Hunan and Africa share a deep historical affinity and a traditional friendship. The province is also among the most active participants in economic and trade cooperation with Africa. In recent years, Hunan has continued to leverage the advantage of hosting the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, accelerate building a pioneering zone for in-depth China-Africa economic and trade cooperation, and keep expanding the "circle of friends" in Africa, achieving a series of pragmatic collaboration results.

Hunan's import from and export to Africa in 2023 reached 55.67 billion CNY, maintaining the rankings of eighth nationwide and first in the central and western regions of China. The average annual growth rate in the past three years (2021-2023) was 23.1%. Hunan has knotted 12 pairs of friendship city ties with African countries, creating a positive pattern of mutual outreach between the two sides.

He believed that China and Africa are good friends, partners, and brothers standing together and helping each other in the face of adversity. Hunan has strong economic complementarities, close people-to-people exchanges, and broad prospects for cooperation with African countries such as Morocco. He expected all parties to work together to implement the important consensus reached between President Xi Jinping and the leaders of African countries. In the context of advancing builidng a China-Africa community with a shared future for mankind at a high level, Hunan and African countries can enhance dialogue and communication, foster mutual learning and exchange, and strengthen people-to-people contacts through high-level visits, international activities, and friendship city ties.

Hunan will continue to strengthen industrial cooperation in advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture; enhance cultural and tourism exchanges; and, improve the long-term mechanism for economic and trade cooperation and exchanges with Africa. It will strive to build itself into a new hub in central China for opening up to Africa, contributing to high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, he added.

The meeting.

Mohamed Sabbari and other guests remarked that Hunan, the hometown of the late Chinese President Mao Zedong, is an important partner for African countries. The province boasts a strong industrial foundation, robust economic development, flourishing innovation vitality, and favorable ecological environment. They looked forward to taking this forum as an opportunity to further deepen the exchanges between African countries and Hunan in economic and trade, education, medical care, and culture and tourism. They warmly welcome more Hunan enterprises to invest and prosper in Africa, realizing sincere friendship, equality and mutual benefit, unity and cooperation, and common development.

The meeting.

The delegation consisted of 17 representatives of political parties from Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Mauritania, Libya, Sudan, and South Sudan. They came to China at the invitation of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee to attend the 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum.