(Picture: the scene of the conference)

China (Shenzhen) - Ethiopia Production Capacity Cooperation Conference was held in Addis Ababa - the capital of Ethiopia in the morning, November 21 (local time in Africa). The Production Capacity Cooperation Conference was jointly organized by Economic, Trade and Information Commission of Shenzhen Municipality and Shenzhen Outbound Alliance, and supported by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Ethiopia, at which the President of Ethiopia Information Technology Cooperation Industrial Park, the Ambassador of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Ethiopia, the Head of the Ministry of Industry of Ethiopia, Yang Xinhong - the Director General of Statistics Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, Qiao Haiyan - the Deputy Director of Economic, Trade and Information Commission of Shenzhen Municipality and Sun Tianlu - the Vice Chairwoman of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance were present and made a speech successively. The Conference has established a face-to-face exchange platform for Chinese and African enterprises by introducing the development advantages, industrial characteristics and production capacity cooperation of Shenzhen, presenting the investment environment of Shenzhen, and studying and sharing the cooperation direction between Shenzhen and Africa. About 120 Chinese and African enterprises and institutions, including Ethiopian Airlines, Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Limited, AVIC International, CNPC, ZTE, Grand Skylight, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and Eastern Industry Zone were invited. At the same time, Africa Branch of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance was inaugurated officially at the Summit. 

(Picture: Mr. Birhane Keleta, an Ethiopian officer, is making a speech)

Mr. Birhane Keleta stated that Ethiopia has attracted plenty of Chinese enterprises to do business there due to its relatively perfect business policies and hardware facilities, advantageous geographical location, relatively strong comprehensive strength in African countries, and favorable protective and incentive measures for investors. 

(Picture: Yang Xinhong, the Director General of Statistics Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, is making a speech)

Yang Xinhong, the Director General of Statistics Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality and the representative of the People’s Government of Shenzhen Municipality, deems that Ethiopia is one of the most influential countries in Africa with rapid economic development and great development potential, and one important foothold for China promoting the construction of “the Belt and Road”. As the window for China’s reform and opening up, Shenzhen will actively seek international exchange and cooperation with, for example Ethiopia, to further build the trade and investment platform, deepen the cooperation in energy, transportation, communication, tourism, manufacturing and other fields, and strive for joint development. Under the framework of “the Belt and Road” and “Forum on China-Africa Cooperation” and centering on “China-Africa 10 Major Cooperation Projects”, it is expected to promote the cooperation between Shenzhen’s development planning and “the Growth and Transformation Plan” of Ethiopia, encourage Chinese enterprises to invest in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, and sincerely welcome Ethiopian enterprises to choose their own economic and trade partners in Shenzhen so as to complement each other’s advantages, promote mutual benefits, share economic development achievements, and contribute more to the construction of China-Ethiopia Strategic Partnership. 

As African countries including Ethiopia are making great efforts to advance the industrialization process, European and American developed countries are promoting “re-industrialization” and emerging countries including China are in the process of industrial upgrading currently, there is great potential and promising future in international production capacity cooperation. Sun Tianlu, the Vice Chairwoman and Secretary General of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance, emphasized in her speech on Facilitating International Production Capacity Cooperation with Help of Shenzhen’s Industrial Advantages that China will adhere to the principles of openness and inclusiveness and act by following international rules in foreign production capacity cooperation, and the focus is to give full play to the comparative advantages of countries. As China has abundant advantageous production capacity and developed countries own advanced technologies, tripartite wins can be achieved if the parties work together to match make with Ethiopia in terms of its demands and develop the local market. We hope that Ethiopian Government could support and facilitate enterprises from foreign countries to invest and promote business in Ethiopia, and that entrepreneurs from foreign countries in Ethiopia could seize the development opportunity in Ethiopia, give full play to their comparative advantages and actively carry out multi-cooperation to jointly advance the industrialization process of Ethiopia and achieve mutual benefit, win-win and joint development. 

(Picture: inauguration ceremony for the branch)

The mission of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance is to create the “outbound” whole industry chain and all-round service platform serving Chinese enterprises in terms of “outbound” policy, operation, capital, finance, laws, and domestic and overseas resource grafting and help enterprises to access transnational business opportunities by responding to the new international cooperation model under “the Belt and Road” initiated by Xi Jinping, China’s President, and integrating high-quality resources of different parties. 

 All professional institutions integrated by the Alliance have been in the “ZJS” APP subordinated to the Alliance, by which enterprises can be easily accessible to professional consulting services if they have the “outbound” demand. In this way, escorting “outbound” is not a slogan any more, but a practical action. 

Africa is an important pole in the current world political and economic pattern, and also an important direction and foothold for construction of “the Belt and Road”. Responsible persons from the People’s Government of Shenzhen Municipality, Ethiopian Government and enterprises, as well as principal participants jointly stepped on the stage and witnessed the opening ceremony for Africa Branch of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance. This Africa Branch was first sponsored by well-known enterprises already rooted in Africa, including Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Limited, Grand Skylight and Shenzhen Energy, where Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Limited, as the President Company of the first session of Africa Branch, shared its business status and investment experience in Africa. The representative of Shenzhen Outbound Alliance introduced Africa Branch to participants. Africa Branch will implement the “the Belt and Road” Initiative to establish six service platforms in Africa, namely information sharing platform, facility interconnection platform, trade unblocking platform, risk prevention platform, talent service platform and financing service platform, and will devote to integrating resources to provide enterprises with all-round professional services and technical support, help them to expand African market and base in Africa, and strengthen friendly exchanges, economic and trade cooperation, as well as cultural exchange between Africa and Shenzhen and China. 

(Picture: Yu Weiguo, the Co-founder of Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Limited as the President Representative of Africa Branch, is sharing)

Ethiopia has been one of the African countries with rapid economic growth in recent years. A batch of Shenzhen enterprises have currently invested in Ethiopia and actively carried out economic and trade exchanges involving energy, transportation, communication and manufacturing. Ethiopia has become one of the important target regions for the “outbound” of Shenzhen enterprises. The Exchange Conference has promoted mutual understanding between Shenzhen and Ethiopia, provided a good exchange and docking platform for the friendly cooperation among governments and enterprises of Shenzhen and Ethiopia, and laid a solid foundation for future cooperation of the parties.