Sino-Burundian Friendship Association Delegation’s First Visit to China

Burundi, an inland African country, has an area of 27,834 square kilometres. Agriculture is the mainstay of its national economy, with 93 percent of its population engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry and over 50 percent of its national income generated from agriculture. In March this year, a Sino-Burundian Friendship Association Delegation headed by Ferdinand Nderagakura, minister of agriculture and livestock, visited China at the invitation of the CPAFFC.

Sino-Burundian Friendship Association (SBFA) was founded in September 2007. Its members come from the political, diplomatic, military, educational, business and trade fields, many of whom have studied, taken training courses or done business in China. They cherish a deep affection for China and work for promoting understanding between the people of China and Burundi. Minister Nderagakura is also a member of the SBFA. He has studied in Zhejiang Agricultural University and is the first Burundian minister who has studied in China. The delegation he led is the first one invited by the CPAFFC to visit China since the founding of SBFA. The SBFA regularly holds lectures on China, helping people to know about China so as to enhance friendship between the people of the two countries.

The delegation visited the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Upon learning that the Institute would run an agro-technician training course for Asian and African countries in September, the minister proposed to send Burundian agro-technicians to attend the course. The Institute expressed warm welcome and its willingness to establish cooperative relations in agricultural technology with Burundi. It also presented a dozen varieties of disease- and pests-resistant, high-yielding vegetable seeds to the Burundian visitors for them to try out. The delegation discovered that the climate, soil and crops in Guangxi were similar to those in Burundi. The Burundians hoped to introduce food-processing techniques from China to Burundi. Due to the hot weather and the lack of processing and preservation techniques in Burundi, there is great waste of crops such as sugarcane, cassava and banana. The Burundian guests also visited a methane-generating pit at a farmer’s house in Guangxi and showed great interest in it. Guangxi is advanced in the world in bio-gas technology, where bio-gas is widely used to generate power to save energy and reduce emissions. In Burundi, 40 percent of its population has no access to electricity. The low-cost bio-gas technology of Guangxi is very much suited to Burundi, where there is ample raw material. During the visit to Shan Dong Foton Lovol Heavy Industry International Trade Co., Ltd., a group member of the Council of the Chinese-African People’s Friendship Association (CAPFA), the Burundian side extended invitation to the Chinese side to attend the agricultural exposition that would be held in Bujumbura to exhibit mini tractors that could be used on the hilly terrain of Burundi and small engineering equipment suitable for the transformation of farmland and irrigation facilities.

Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co.Ltd., also a group member of the Council of the CAPFA, contacted the delegation and gave quotation of prices of relevant veterinary medicines. The company’s products are sold in Ethiopia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the West African market. It built a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan ten years ago which has achieved remarkable results. Its products are suited to African countries.

The delegation hoped that China would support Burundi’s agricultural development projects through sending experts and running personnel training courses. Minister Nderagakura held that China is leading the world in agro-technology. He expressed the hope that through cooperation in agricultural technology between the two countries, mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples would be strengthened and Sino-Burundian friendship would be passed on generation after generation.