For many years, the Chinese Government has dispatched the minister of foreign affairs to Africa for the first official visit of a year. This year, however, that rule was broken when Hui Liangyu, Chinese Vice Premier, made the 14-day trip.

On January 6-19, Hui paid official visits to Mauritius, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameroon and Senegal, focusing on economic and agricultural cooperation.

"The friendly cooperation between China and Africa is an important milestone in China's foreign policy," he told Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade on January 14 in Dakar, Senegal, the last leg of his African visit. "After a decade of constant development and improvement, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has become a banner leading the development of Sino-African relations and set up a successful example of cooperation with Africa [as a member] of the world community," he told Xinhua News Agency.

On the up

Senegal only restored diplomatic relations with China in 2005, but China is already the country's third largest trading partner. In the first 10 months of 2010, the bilateral trade hit $460 million, a year-on-year growth of 31.4 percent. Meanwhile, Sino-Senegalese cooperation in fields like agriculture and fishery is also making rapid progress. China's CNFC (China National Fisheries Corp.) Overseas Fishery Co. Ltd. has been operating in Senegal for 30 years. 

"China and Africa are both developing economies and are in the process of industrialization and urbanization. Both have expanding demands for various products and technologies," Xie Yajing, Commercial Counselor of the West Asian and African Affairs Department of Ministry of Commerce, told ChinAfrica. "This is conducive to the rapid development of Sino-African trade. New development opportunities are coming."

China is now Africa's largest trading partner. Though the bilateral trade increased dramatically in recent years, the increase is not constant. Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that before the early 1990s, bilateral trade grew slowly, before taking off in this century. In 2000, Sino-African trade was $10.6 billion; the figure hit $106.8 billion eight years later with an annual growth of 33.5 percent.