At 11 a.m. on July 25, local time in Côte d'Ivoire, the commencement ceremony of the Agricultural Products Processing Plant - Palm Oil Processing Plant (Plant 1) project was held in Guitry, Côte d'Ivoire, and Cai Dianwei, chairman of Hunan Construction Investment Group, attended the ceremony with the economic and trade delegation.

Edmund Coulibaly, minister of agriculture and rural development of Côte d'Ivoire, Emmanuel Tra Bi, minister of Promotion of Trade, Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises Development in Côte d'Ivoire, Camara, governor of Guitry, Lu Jun, counselor of the Commercial Office of the Chinese embassy in Côte d'Ivoire, Yan Jinsong, chairman of Yueyang Guansheng Investment Development Co., Ltd., Zhu Chen, chairman of Mainland Group (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., Ma Wang, general manager of the company in Côte d'Ivoire of Mainland Group, and Sun Guoqiang, executive secretary general of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Promotion Council also attended the ceremony.

At the ceremony, Cai Dianwei expressed gratitude to various departments of the Côte d'Ivoire government and the Chinese embassy in Côte d'Ivoire for their strong support for the project. At the same time, he also thanked Yueyang Guansheng Investment Development Co., Ltd. and Mainland Group for their full cooperation in the project implementation process.

He said that the project adopts the mode of “project contracting plus industrial investment plus import and export trade” and aims to promote the high-quality development of Hunan-Africa bilateral trade cooperation based on the resources advantages of agricultural product in Côte d'Ivoire.

He emphasized that the group will actively help accelerate the transformation and upgrading of agriculture in Côte d'Ivoire and promote China-Côte d'Ivoire economic and trade cooperation in the new era.

Yan Jinsong introduced the implementation of the project plan and gave a speech on the significance of its construction.

Zhu Chen delivered a speech on accelerating project construction and promised to implement the projects in Côte d'Ivoire based on the principles of “win-win cooperation and honest management”, so as to make greater contributions to the local economic development.

Lu Jun also expressed congratulations on the commencement of the project. He said that the project will promote the economic development of surrounding areas and offer more job opportunities. Meanwhile, he hoped that the project will be advanced and put into production quickly with high quality.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Côte d'Ivoire. The project is a symbol of deepening friendship and cooperation between China and Côte d'Ivoire, and also an important achievement of joint construction of the “Belt and Road” with high quality.

Sun Guoqiang pointed out in his speech that this project is a successful case of Hunan enterprises to develop the Africa market in groups, and it is also a feat made by Hunan enterprises in implementing the “Nine Projects” and the consensus reached by the two countries. It is also a good beginning and model for deep economic and trade cooperation between China and Côte d'Ivoire. He also wished the friendship between the two countries everlasting and the cooperation between China and Côte d'Ivoire thriving.

Edmund Coulibaly stated that agriculture is a pillar industry in their country. The cooperation of the project will support the agriculture development in Côte d'Ivoire, and greatly increase the added value of agricultural products. Also, it will further promote the export of palm oil and other agricultural products to China and the local economic development.

Emmanuel Tra Bi stressed in his speech that this project will effectively increase the palm oil production capacity in Côte d'Ivoire and promote local economic prosperity and development. He hoped to further expand economic and trade cooperation with Chinese enterprises in the future.

Camara expressed trust in Hunan Construction Investment Group to undertake the project, and showed gratitude for the contributions made by Yueyang Guansheng and Mainland Group during the project implementation process. Meanwhile, he said that all departments in Guitry will help solve the difficulties in the project construction process in a timely manner to ensure the smooth progress of the project construction.

Subsequently, the leaders of all parties attending the ceremony jointly laid the foundation for the project.

The agricultural product processing plant project consists of 15 agricultural product processing factories, including 11 overseas primary processing factories and 4 domestic deep processing factories. The estimated total construction cost of the project is about US$391 million (of which, the total construction cost of overseas processing factories is about US$196 million, and the total construction cost of domestic processing factories is about US$195 million).

After all processing plants are completed and officially put into production, it is expected that the annual production capacity will reach 400,000 tons of rubber, 300,000 tons of palm oil, and 200,000 tons of primary products made by seed cotton.

The construction cost of the palm oil processing plant (Plant 1) project is expected to hit US$20 million. It covers an area of approximately 22 hectares, with a total construction area of approximately 25,000 square meters, and an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons.