Foreign minister's Africa visit intended to promote sustained, in-depth development of relations: spokeswoman

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's upcoming visit to four African countries is intended to promote sustained and in-depth development of China-Africa relations, said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Friday.

Wang will visit Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Chad and Nigeria from January 5 to 11 at the invitation of these countries, according to Mao Ning, the spokeswoman, at a press conference in Beijing.

"Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit four African countries. This marks the 35th consecutive year that the Chinese foreign minister would visit Africa on the first overseas trip at the start of the year. At the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) last year, President Xi Jinping proposed upgrading bilateral relations between China and all African countries having diplomatic ties with China to the level of strategic relations, and elevating the overall definition of China-Africa relations to an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era. Xi said that China and Africa need to jointly advance modernization in six aspects, and promote implementation of 10 partnership programs of action, which have received warm response from the African side. Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Chad and Nigeria are all friendly cooperation partners of China," Mao said.

Noting that Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Chad and Nigeria are all friendly cooperation partners of China, Mao said that Wang's visit aims to promote implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of FOCAC, deepen practical cooperation in various fields, and promote sustained and in-depth development of China-Africa relationship.

Foreign minister's Africa visit intended to promote sustained, in-depth development of relations: spokeswoman

Foreign minister's Africa visit intended to promote sustained, in-depth development of relations: spokeswoman

Yantai Port in eastern China's Shandong Province has witnessed a small peak in the shipment of commercial vehicles in the start of the new year.

Since Jan 1, the automobile ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) terminal of the port has received at least four ro-ro ships and dispatched over 10,000 commercial vehicles.

"For the current large volume of commercial vehicle loading and unloading operations, we improved the efficiency of vehicle passage based on factors like the number of vessels and berthing time. With the joint efforts of all sides, a new high of 320 vehicles per hour in average operational efficiency has been established," said Gu Feng, deputy director of the production dispatching center at Yantai Port Ro-Ro Logistics Co. Ltd.

In 2024, the shipment volume of commercial vehicles from Yantai Port reached 737,000 units, among which the volume of international transshipment exceeded 330,000 units, up 22 percent year on year, statistics showed.

As a logistics base and a logistics hub for commercial vehicles in Shandong and North China, Yantai Port has already developed a number of ro-ro shipping routes that cover over 30 countries and regions in Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

East China port sees swelling auto exports in new year