China, Africa discuss industrial investment at WTO meeting in Cameroon

Trade ministers from China and African countries met on Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to discuss how Chinese investment can help speed up industrialization in the continent.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said China would establish five new China-Africa industrial cooperation hubs and expand cooperation in infrastructure, skills training, and trade rules.

“By the end of 2025, 33 China-Africa economic and trade cooperation zones had attracted over $13 billion in investment and generated more than $55.5 billion in output value,” he said. “China will leverage the unique role of industrial parks in promoting industrialization, share its experience, and work with African countries to establish five China-Africa industrial cooperation growth hubs to drive regional economic integration.”

Wang said China exported nearly $100 billion worth of intermediate goods to Africa in 2025. Chinese investment had helped raise Africa's local processing rate from 15% to 45%, he added, citing an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report.

He said China would work with African partners at the meeting to advance the WTO's Investment Facilitation Agreement and would continue negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements to expand African exports to China.

Ghana's Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, said Africa's share of global manufacturing stands below 3% and called for a shift away from exporting raw materials toward processed and finished goods. China-Africa trade reached $348 billion in 2025, up 17.7% on the previous year.

She called for collaboration on industrial infrastructure, technology transfer, green industrialization, and joint ventures in mineral processing and agro-industry.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia's Minister for Trade and Regional Integration Kassahun Gofe said China is Ethiopia's largest source of foreign direct investment and pointed to the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway and the Eastern Industrial Zone as examples of cooperation that had created hundreds of thousands of jobs.

"The true measure of this cooperation lies not in declarations but in tangible results—factories operating, jobs created, and technologies transferred," Gofe said.