Thirty chairpersons of chambers of commerce and trade officials from African countries including Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt and Kenya started to receive 14-day training in China on Wednesday.

The training program, which will invite economic experts from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Federation of Machinery Industry and Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) to give lectures, is a follow-up activity to the second ministerial-level conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum.

This is the second time for China to hold such training programs for African business people and officials. Last year 33 participants from 18 African countries received a similar training in China.

The two-week seminar will focus on the management of business chambers, according to CCPIT.

As human resources are the most important among all resources, China in recent years has increased its investment in training African business people, said Zhang Zhou, CCPIT Vice President at the opening ceremony.

"It will help to expand bilateral political and economic cooperation between the two sides," Zhang said.

Since the 1980s, economic and trade exchanges between China and Africa have developed rapidly. China's exports to Africa include machinery and electronic products, high-tech products, textile and clothes, grain and medicine. Its imports include crude oil, log, iron ore, steel and cotton.

Source: Xinhua