A promotion fair of African products opened in Beijing Monday morning following a landmark China- Africa summit at which China promised to further open its market to the African continent.

Over 170 enterprises from 23 African countries filled a Beijing exhibition hall on Monday with varieties of their local specialties, including minerals, jewelry, textile, fur, spice, tea and coffee.

The two-day exhibition that followed the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was staged to increase Africa's export to China, officials with China's Ministry of Commerce said.

Chinese President Hu Jintao announced Saturday at the opening ceremony of the summit that China will further open up its market to Africa by increasing the number of tariff-free import items from Africa to 440 from the present 190, with other cooperation measures including 5 billion U.S. dollars of loans and credits and exemption of more debt owed by poor African countries.

Trade between Africa and China reached 39.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2005 after breaking the mark of 10 billion dollars in 2000.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proposed on Saturday at an entrepreneurs' conference held on the sideline of the summit that China and Africa should fully tap cooperation potential and strive to bring their trade volume to 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2010.

"We hope the exhibition will help African enterprises know better about the Chinese market so as to boost China-Africa economic and trade cooperation," said Jiang Zengwei, vice minister of commerce.

Source: Xinhua