Beijing Review: What is your take on the current economic and trade relationship between China and South Africa? Lin Songtian:

At present, the economic and trade cooperation between China and South Africa has seen solid progress and shows good momentum of multi-directional, multilevel and wide-ranging rapid development. China has been South Africa’s largest trading partner for eight consecutive years, and South Africa is China’s largest trading partner and the most important investment and tourism destination in Africa. In 2016, the bilateral trade volume between China and South Africa reached $35.3 billion, accounting for about 25 percent of the total trade volume between China and Africa, which was a 20-fold increase from 1998 when the two countries established diplomatic relations. China’s non-financial direct investment in South Africa has accumulated to more than $15 billion.

Currently, China has more than 300 large and medium-sized enterprises with investment in South Africa, involving a wide range of sectors such as finance, agriculture, manufacturing, information technology and other fields.

[These include] South Africa’s state-owned transport group [Transnet] ordering 232 diesel locomotives from China’s CRRC Corp. Ltd. worth a total of $900 million, which is the largest single order in China’s rail transit vehicle export.

China’s home appliance brand Hisense has set up factories in South Africa. The annual output of TV sets and refrigerators both reached 40 million units, making up 26 percent and 22.4 percent of the market, respectively, ranking first