Nigeria Times

By Du Haitao, People’s Daily

Recently, 1.5 tons of durians imported from the Philippines arrived at the Beijing Capital International Airport via an international cargo flight, and completed customs clearance under the supervision of Chinese customs officers.

“The durians were shipped under whole-process cold-chain logistics management, so that they can remain fresh,” said Song Xiaochen, manager of the importer of the fruits in Beijing.

“We’ll expand our supply and bring more fresh fruits around the world to Chinese consumers,” Song added.

Following the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), fresh durians from Vietnam and the Philippines have successively been approved to enter the Chinese market, said Zhu Cheng, an official with the Beijing customs.

“While ensuring bio-safety and food safety, we opened a green channel that enables around-the-clock customs clearance upon reservation, so that fresh agricultural products are immediately checked and green-lighted,” Zhu noted.

Lately, a batch of imported lobsters, dungeness crabs, oysters and other fresh aquatic products were cleared by the customs at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the largest single air cargo terminal in China, and then distributed to the Yangtze River delta and surrounding areas via supermarkets and aquatic product markets.

“Since the implementation of the RCEP, Cambodia’s longans, Vietnam’s durians, and other fruits from other ASEAN countries have been approved to enter the Chinese market, which has led to a surge in the imports of fruits from ASEAN countries via Shanghai customs,” said a customs official from the customs supervision area of Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone.

According to the official, the customs supervision area of Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone handled 488,000 tons of fruits imported from ASEAN countries in the first five months this year, with a total value of 976 million yuan ($134.81 million).

On June 6, a batch of ham from Spain was imported via a port in Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang province. This year has seen a significant rise in the imports of meat, aquatic products, fresh fruits and other agricultural products via the ports of Ningbo. Ningbo now has cargo air routes to Bangkok, Osaka and Manila, as well as nine regular cargo flights.

Last year, 13 countries agreed to the quarantine requirements for exporting fresh fruits to China, and a total of 16 fruits were involved.

Driven by the lowered market access, China’s fruit imports went up eight percent in 2022, hitting $14.6 billion. The total weight of imported fruits stood at 7.33 million tons last year, more than doubling the figure in 2012.

According to customs statistics, China’s imports of consumer goods other than passenger cars grew 14.3 percent to reach 686.69 billion yuan in the January-May period this year. In particular, the imports of meat, fresh and dried fruits, and aquatic products went up 11.1 percent, 19.4 percent and 32.9 percent, respectively.

Insiders said the Chinese market will maintain a strong demand for premium fresh produce given the continuous trend of consumption upgrading.

The country will further expand its imports of fresh produce, diversify the source of imports and enrich the varieties of imported products, which will offer Chinese consumers with more choices.  “We’ll keep deepening international cooperation on the trade of farm produce, promote opening up of the agricultural sector, and expand investment and cooperation in agricultural trade, so as to improve trade facilitation and liberalization, offer more choices for Chinese consumers and ensure the stability of the global supply chain of farm produce,” said an official with China’s General Administration of Customs.

By Yang Xun, Yan Ke, Shen Zhilin, People’s Daily

The 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo kicked off in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan province on June 29.

The four-day event, themed “Common Development for a Shared Future,” is expected to draw wide participation and build new momentums for China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.

At the Changsha International Convention and Exhibition Center, the main venue of the event, a number of featured commodities from Africa such as wine, coffee and handicrafts, as well as China’s engineering machinery, medical equipment, consumer goods and agricultural equipment, were exhibited. The exhibition area expanded by 30,000 square meters from the last session to 100,000 square meters.

The sub-venue of the event is at Changsha’s China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation, Promotion, and Innovation Demonstration Park. It gathers more exhibitors, purchasers and exhibits, and aims at building a permanent venue for China-Africa Economic and Trade.

Wasion Holdings Limited has been engaged in the African market for more than 20 years, during which it delivered over 5 million electric meters to African consumers. Last year, its revenue in Africa jumped 28.4 percent year on year.

This time, the company brought to the 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo a series of products and solutions that help improve the basic livelihood of African consumers, as well as its latest energy-storage system, said Lv Xinwei, vice president of the company.

“We set up an exhibition area of 200 square meters, and we are presenting two ‘star products’ developed for mining in Africa,” said Zhu Jianxin, vice general manager of Sunward, one of the leading underground engineering equipment enterprises in China.

According to him, Sunward invited its clients from West Africa and South Africa to Changsha for communication and contract signing, hoping to further reinforce its cooperation with African partners.

An exhibition section for African enterprises and commodities is joined by 300 African enterprises and numerous products from Africa, including essential oil from Madagascar, gems from Zambia, wood carvings from Zimbabwe and flowers from Kenya.

A Kenyan exhibitor named Anna told People’s Daily that she brought to the event Kenya’s tea products and wood carvings, which drew a number of potential customers. She believes that she will receive many orders this time.

To expand the imports of quality commodities from Africa, Hunan province launched an “African product brand bank” activity, which introduced 106 types of African products to the province’s markets.

Relying on the Hunan Gaoqiao Grand Market, the province is expanding its imports of coffee, nuts, dried chili, sesames, peanuts, and wood products, and facilitating the exports of small-sized agricultural machines, small-sized hardware, prepackaged food and consumer goods. It has completed the first transaction of prepackaged food under mart procurement.

Besides, Hunan province has also set up a China-Africa incubation center for livestream commerce, which is also known as Mango Live Stream. The incubation center hosts livestream activities to promote African products, and has reported total revenue of over 100 million yuan ($13.79 million).

On June 29, the China-Africa Trade Index was officially unveiled by the General Administration of Customs at the 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. Taking the year of 2000 as the base period with a value of 100, the index has hit 990.55 in 2022 and keeps rising.

During the same period, China’s trade with Africa surged more than 20 times from less than 100 billion yuan to 1.88 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth of 17.7 percent. China has maintained the largest trading partner of Africa for 14 consecutive years. In the first five months this year, China’s trade with Africa stood at 822.32 billion yuan, up 16.4 percent.

Jiang Wei, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, said China-Africa trade features high complementarity, adding that it offers strong support for the two sides’ economic and social development and benefits both Chinese and African people.

As an important mechanism of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation, and an important window for sub-regional economic and trade cooperation, the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo is of vital significance for Hunan to promote high-level opening up and build a new development paradigm, Jiang remarked.

Apart from focusing on economy and trade, the expo also launched forums and seminars on traditional Chinese medicine cooperation and infrastructure. It for the first time held a trade negotiation over featured light industrial products and textile, an achievements exhibition of China-Africa cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and an achievements exhibition of innovations made by Chinese and African women. Eight guest countries of honor have set up stand-alone exhibitions to demonstrate their own features.

President of Malawi Lazarus Chakwera, who attended the opening ceremony of the 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, said that the expo has significantly strengthened Africa-China cooperation and brought more prosperity to relevant regions, and will bring Africa-China cooperation onto a new level.

By Liu Ge, Wang Yinxin, Bai Ziwei, People’s Daily

Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 28 sent a congratulatory letter to a forum on people-to-people friendship between China and the United States.

The event, titled “Bond with Kuliang: 2023 China-U.S. People-to-People Friendship Forum,” is being held in Fuzhou, southeast China’s Fujian province.

In the letter, Xi said that back in 1992, he invited Mrs. Elizabeth Gardner to Kuliang, helping her fulfill the wish of her late husband to return to his childhood home. In the following 30 years and more, members of the Kuliang Friends and people from various sectors of both countries have delved deep into the history of this town, actively spread its culture, and worked tirelessly to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.

Kuliang is where a touching story of China-U.S. friendship happened.

In 1901, Milton Gardner, born in the United States, came to live in Fuzhou with his parents when he was still in his infancy, and his whole family moved back to the United States in 1911. Gardner had been longing for revisiting his childhood home, but had never been able to make his wish fulfilled.

Gardner’s story was told by an article published on People’s Daily on April 1992. In 2012, when visiting the United States as China’s vice president, Xi shared the Kuliang story with the audience at a welcome luncheon held by American friendly groups, drawing warm response from all sectors in the two countries.

Amity between peoples holds the key to the relationship between countries, and the people are the cornerstone of its growth, Xi said. “I hope that you will continue to write the Kuliang story and carry forward the special bonds, so that the friendship between our two peoples can stay forever strong and robust like the thousand-year-old cedar trees in Kuliang.”

Lee Gardner is a grandnephew of Milton Gardner. Though the man, in his seventies, is physically challenged, he still came to China to join the forum this time. It marked his fourth time returning to Kuliang.

Lee Gardner’s grandfather and father were all born in Fuzhou. This time, he returned to Kuliang wearing a tie in “Chinese red.”

Opening an album of his family, Lee Gardner told People’s Daily that his entire family is grateful to Xi, and the Chinese President’s efforts to help an American senior fulfill his wish have touched many people in the United States.

Elyn Maclnnis, is the Lead Researcher of the Kuliang Tourism and Culture Research Association. Her husband Peter MacInnis was born in China, and her father-in-law Donald MacInnis was once a member of the Flying Tigers, a formidable group of volunteer fighter pilots who helped China fight the Japanese invasion.

After hearing the letter from Xi at the forum, Elyn Maclnnis noted that the three generations of her family all have a bond with China and love the country very much.

In 2015, the woman started studying the history and culture of Kuliang through conversations with the members of Kuliang Friends. In her point of view, the Kuliang story mirrors the peace and friendship carried by this piece of land.

“Thanks to the efforts of President Xi, the Kuliang story of China-U.S. friendship is known to the world. The article was published on April 8, 1992, and me and Mrs. Elizabeth Gardner arrived in Fuzhou on August 21. This was organized by President Xi. He is as easy-going as family,” said Liu Zhonghan, author of the 1992 People’s Daily article.

He said that the forum, which was joined by many from the United States, reflected the people-to-people friendship between the two countries.

Currently, the international community is generally concerned about today’s U.S.-China relations, and it’s more important than ever for the two countries to inherit their friendship, transcend disputes, find common value and establish a heart-to-heart bond, said Luca Barone, who received Xi when the latter visited Iowa in 1985 as the party secretary of Zhengding county in China’s northern province of Hebei.

Barone noted that the Kuliang story is inspiring and shows what true friendship is.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, told People’s Daily that non-governmental friendship is a foundation on which different countries enhance mutual understanding, expand consensus and strengthen friendliness.

Xi’s congratulatory letter is of vital significance for the United States and China to get rid of the difficulties in their relations and restart communication in all fields, Kuhn said, adding that it demonstrates China’s sincerity in developing China-U.S. relations and commitment to cooperation.

Kuhn hopes that the people-to-people friendship between the United States and China can be passed down from generation to generation and help the two countries improve their relations.

By Peng Xunwen

In factory workshops, robots are precisely producing parts; on roads, autopilot vehicles are running to accumulate data under different traffic scenarios; on industrial cloud platforms, enterprises trade with each other idle production capacity and equipment.

In today’s China, the industrial internet is promoting in-depth integration between the digital economy and the real economy, creating new prospects for industrial production.

In a pile driver factory of Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer Sany Group in Changping district, Beijing, there stood several machines that were dozens of meters high.

“These are rotary drilling rigs we manufactured. Each of them weighs nearly 100 tons and can drill to a depth of over 100 meters,” said Yin Yanhu, head of the factory’s production technique department.

These giant devices were manufactured in a huge workshop, where various robots controlled by a few workers were busy working in the production line. neatly arranged. Different from traditional laborers, these workers were more like “taking care” of the robots, ensuring that those smart machines functioned properly.

Yin told People’s Daily that machines were mostly manufactured by human labor in the past, and it took about a month to make a rotary drilling rig. At that time, there used to be over 1,000 workers in the factory, and the annual output was more than 3 billion yuan ($414 million).

“In 2019, the factory started the digital transformation. Now it takes only around a week to manufacture such a rotary drilling rig, and the annual output has jumped to more than 7 billion yuan,” Yin said, adding that hundreds of workers have become versatile and turned into engineers that can perform physical tasks and program.

The key to the factory’s digital upgrading lies in a system developed based on the industrial internet platform Rootcloud. Yin called it the central controlling system of the factory, a “brain” for manufacturing.

To manufacture a rotary drilling rig, for example, the system can rapidly assign required tasks to each flexible production line, work island, equipment and worker. The whole workflow is digitally driven, from order generation to delivery, Yin said.

In the factory, machine parts are welded, moved and assembled by robots. Rootcloud works nonstop to analyze the industrial data collected from over 36,000 sampling sites, so as to generate the optimal parameters for each procedure and machine model, and optimize the workflow to the maximum extent.

The factory was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a “lighthouse factory” in 2021.

According to statistics recently released at the 2023 Industrial Internet Conference, the scale of China’s industrial internet industry has exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan. Besides, 240 influential industrial internet platforms have been listed, including Rootcloud, serving more than 260,000 enterprises. Rootcloud is one of them.

Recently, Rootcloud unveiled three versions of its industrial internet operating system tailored for smart factories, digital enterprises and intelligent chains. As the core of the platform, the operating system, after seven years of application verification, is able to virtualize industrial equipment in an online space and provide a sound environment where enterprises develop and run their applications.

At present, the operating system is providing industrial internet services for nearly 1,000 relevant enterprises.

Co-founder and CEO He Dongdong of Rootcloud said that data from traditional industrial information systems are distributed in a layered structure, and the transmission of data is completed in a bottom-up manner layer by layer.

However, he said, in digital factories built by the industrial internet operating system, data can be exchanged more frequently and efficiently, and the cost of developing industrial applications is lower.

On the industrial internet platform Laohuyun, or TigerCloud, authorized enterprises can not only check other enterprises’ data, but also make purchases, sell products, launch training sessions, and carry out maintenance activities. Just like a “social network” for industrial enterprises, the platform boasts annual transactions of tens of billions of yuan.

XCMG Hanyun, an industrial internet platform launched by Chinese heavy machinery manufacturing company XCMG, has been connected to more than 400,000 sets of equipment. It obtains data through instruments developed based on China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. The platform currently provides services for tens of thousands of enterprises in some 80 industries.

Yu Xiaohui, head of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told People’s Daily that China’s industrial internet is entering a new phase featuring large-scale development. Industrial internet will become an important approach and infrastructure leading the manufacturing industry toward more digitalized and higher-end development that is smarter and greener, Yu said.