FOCAC Pre-Summit Ministerial Conference Ponders Agro-Processing to Reap More Local Benefits

On 3 August 2024, the #FOCAC Pre-Summit Ministerial Conference took place in Beijing. The Conference was co-chaired by Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister WANG Yi and Senegalese Foreign Affairs Minster Yassine Fall.

Minister Wang pointed out that the Summit is happening within a difficult global context plagued by hyperinflation, financial fragility, political upheavals and geopolitical challenges. Under these circumstances, China and Africa will aim for ‘high-quality cooperation’ and strive to draft ‘a new blueprint for a shared destiny’.

On the other hand, Minister Fall believes that the Sino-African ties should be focused on three areas: #Industrialization, #AgriculturalModernization and Technical Education (#TVET).

In a way, the three areas are inter-related. In order to reap greater economic benefits, Africans would like to perform more Local Value Addition (#LVA) and build up a complete ecosystem for a given sector. In order to do that, Africa would need agro-processing plants manned by a skilled workforce and that is where the Technical and Vocational Education and Training comes in to play.

Taking cocoa and cashew nuts as two cases in point. Currently, African economies are mostly at the bottom of the Global Value Chains (#GVC) and thus end up with ‘peanuts’, in a manner of speaking.

More than 80% of infrastructure development in Senegal is undertaken by Chinese companies. She has noted a ‘quantitative and qualitative quantum leap’ in terms of cooperation between Senegal and China. Following the #FOCAC2024 Summit, the Senegalese delegation is planning a visit to the province of Shandong.

She also expressed the wish for the intervention of China to pre-empt and resolve conflicts on the African continent in order to maintain Peace and Security.