A delegation from the Republic of Togo visit Haier Group in Qingdao. [Photo/Dazhong News]

A group of delegations from Togo, Lesotho, Senegal, and other countries attending the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation visited Qingdao from Sept 3 to 8.

After the visits, the delegations highly praised the development of Qingdao, expressing that this beautiful, modern city not only boasts picturesque landscapes but also exudes strong vitality and unlimited potential.

As an important gateway for China's opening-up and a leading city in Shandong's economy, Qingdao has a deep foundation of cooperation and exchanges with Africa.

Local Qingdao enterprises such as Haier, Hisense, and Sentury Tire have launched multiple cooperative efforts in Africa. For example, Haier Group invested $168 million in Egypt to build an ecological park, which is dedicated to creating a model project for Sino-Egyptian cooperation, covering products such as air conditioners, washing machines, televisions, and refrigerators and becoming a regional manufacturing base covering the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Hisense South African Home Appliance Industrial Park is the largest investment by a Chinese enterprise in household appliance manufacturing in South Africa. [Photo/Dazhong News]

Hisense Group established the South African Home Appliance Industrial Park in 2013, which is the largest investment by a Chinese enterprise in household appliance manufacturing in South Africa in the past 40 years.

Qingdao Sentury Tire Co Ltd invested in constructing a project in Tangier, Morocco, with an annual production capacity of 6 million high-performance car and light truck radial tires, making it the first intelligent tire manufacturing factory in Africa invested in by China.

Qingdao's investments not only show its full support for a "community of shared future between China and Africa", but also build momentum into the development of Africa, which contributes to the quality of life for local residents.

For example, in the aforementioned investment projects, the construction and operation of the ecological park in Egypt built by Haier can create job opportunities for 3,000 locals, and the Hisense South African Home Appliance Industrial Park can generate over 5,000 employment positions for the local community.

Qingdao Port, a subsidiary corporation of Shandong Port Group, opens nine container shipping routes to Africa. [Photo by Zhang Jingang/for chinadaily.com.cn]