Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming headed Chinese governmental economic and trade delegation to have visited 3 African countries of Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania on January 11-17. He stated on such visit in an exclusive interview with the reporter from Xinhua News Agency that consolidating and developing China-African friendly cooperation is Chinese important foothold in foreign policies as well as the key point China gives priority to in conducting foreign economic exchanges.

Chen said the fourth ministerial meeting of Sino-African Cooperation Forum was successfully held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt last November, which is another milestone of Sino-African friendly cooperation since Beijing Summit of Sino-African Cooperation Forum in 2006. Premier Wen Jiabao declared 8 new measures to advance Sino-African cooperation in behalf of Chinese government, which is of great significance to strengthen Sino-African friendly cooperation and economic and trade cooperation in the new period and also highly concerned and warmly welcomed by African countries.

He expressed that the main purpose of China's visiting Africa to strengthen communication and coordination with African countries in a bid to launch the implementation of 8 new measures soon. "How to implement such 8 new measures well is China's key point in the work for Africa in the future 3 years," said he.