China Focus: China implements historic zero tariffs for all African nations with diplomatic ties

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) — China on Friday expanded its zero-tariff treatment to cover all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic ties, creating new opportunities for Africa to boost exports and industrialization amid the global headwinds of protectionism.In the early hours of Friday, 24 tonnes of apples from South Africa cleared customs in south China’s Shenzhen, becoming the first batch of African goods to benefit from the expanded zero-tariff policy.

China has already scrapped tariffs on 100 percent of tariff lines for 33 least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa since Dec. 1, 2024. The new zero-tariff policy will benefit the relatively better-off countries such as Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria.

Under the new arrangement, zero tariffs will apply to the 20 African non-LDCs in the form of a preferential tariff rate for two years, during which China will continue to promote the signing of the China-Africa Economic Partnership for Shared Development agreement with relevant African countries.

Officials said the agreement will fix zero tariffs as a long-term institutional arrangement.China’s commerce ministry said in a statement that the zero-tariff policy will lend a competitive edge to African products such as cocoa from Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, coffee and avocados from Kenya, and citrus fruits and wine from South Africa, which used to face tariffs ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent.

The ministry noted that zero tariffs will help encourage China and other trading partners to increase investment in Africa, bringing capital, technology, equipment and management expertise to process African specialty products locally. It will also make China-Africa trade more balanced and its growth more sustainable.

The latest move from China has been widely praised as a significant step toward further opening up the world’s second-largest economy at a time when much of the global trading system is gravitating toward protectionism and narrower market access.

The zero-tariff treatment is a “very timely” move for Africa, which bears the brunt of numerous global crises and faces isolationism and protectionism in the world, African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf told media last week after the inaugural meeting of the China-Africa Entrepreneurs Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.”I would like to express, on behalf of the African Union Commission, our sincere gratitude for this very brotherly gesture that all Africans appreciate,” Youssouf said.

China is Africa’s largest trading partner. According to China’s General Administration of Customs, China-Africa trade hit a record high of 348 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. Of this total, China’s imports from Africa amounted to 123 billion dollars, an increase of 5.4 percent year on year.