As Africa's largest trading partner for 14 consecutive years, China's cooperation with the continent in the digital economy has yielded fruitful results in recent years.

The ongoing China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo held in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, has seen economic and trade cooperation between the two sides extend from trade and infrastructure to emerging industries such as digital, green and aerospace.

According to Li Fei, vice minister of commerce, Chinese companies have participated in Africa's digital infrastructure construction and promoted the development of e-commerce, mobile payment, media entertainment and other industries.

China made a commitment in 2021 at the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (MOCAC) held in Dakar, Senegal, that it would undertake 10 digital economy projects for Africa in fields like communications networks, data centers and smart cities.

The country also promised to set up centers for China-Africa cooperation in satellite remote-sensing applications and support the development of China-Africa joint laboratories, partner institutes and scientific and technological innovation cooperation bases.

Digital cooperation was reconfirmed in the China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035, which was passed at the eighth FOCAC Ministerial Conference, saying that the two sides will expand cooperation in areas such as spectrum management, 5G technology, satellite internet, big data, e-commerce and smart city.

Practical results have been obtained in building digital infrastructure, application of new technologies, promoting smart agriculture and e-commerce trade, and training of African digital talents.

Kilimall, established by a Changsha-based Chinese company in 2014, has become the largest e-commerce platform in East Africa with tens of millions of users.

The company will open five to 10 more cross-border e-commerce business sites in Africa and build new overseas warehouses in Tanzania and Uganda this year, according to Yvonne Maina, who has worked in the logistics department of the platform since 2019.

Currently, the number of the platform's employees in Kenya has exceeded 300, of which foreign employees account for more than 70 percent, reported the People's Daily in late May.

Besides, drone technology from China has now been introduced to African countries like Mozambique, South Africa and Ghana, empowering the development of smart agriculture and supporting the continent's agricultural digital transformation.

A rice farm, Wanbao Mozambique Agricultural Park, has seen a 13.6 percent increase in crop yield with the use of drones and other high-tech innovations for three consecutive years, said Maria Gustava, ambassador of the Republic of Mozambique to the People's Republic of China, at a forum held in November 2022.

"Local farmers are piloting drones using pre-mapped routes on their cell phones. Thus, this project has also contributed significantly to increase productivity and supply of rice in the country and provides greater choice for the consumer and contributing for food security," the ambassador added.

Chinese people believe that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. China's tech giant Huawei has established an academy relating to information and communications technologies with an university in Uganda, aiming to introduce technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence and big data into the country.

At present, the academy trains over 2,000 technical personnel for the African country each year, according to the People's Daily.

Correspondingly, China has also kept up with building related infrastructure. According to a white paper released by China's State Council Information Office in November 2021, Chinese companies have cooperated with major African operators in achieving full basic coverage of telecommunications services on the continent.

Read more: Full Text: China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals

Over half of the African continent's wireless sites and high-speed mobile broadband networks were built by China, said the white paper.

More than 200,000 km of optical fiber have been laid in total, giving broadband Internet access to 6 million households and serving more than 900 million local people as of that year.

David Monyae, director at the Center for Africa-China Studies of the University Of Johannesburg in South Africa, said in an interview in 2022 that there is huge potential for scientific and technological innovation cooperation between China and Africa.

Among the 200 Chinese-funded enterprises in South Africa, technology companies accounted for nearly one third, according to the doctor, adding that there were more than 10,000 Chinese-funded enterprises in all of Africa.

"Chinese technology companies have a keen grasp of the needs of the African market, which has promoted the development of Africa-China technology innovation cooperation." Monyae believes the Chinese technology companies will achieve a win-win situation with their African counterparts.

Read more: China injects fresh momentum into Africa's infrastructure boom