(Yicai) Sept. 6 -- China will offer tariff-free treatment to the 33 African nations designated as least developed countries to promote its trade prosperity with Africa and provide more opportunities for the continent's economic development.

China will give all the least developed countries having diplomatic relations with it zero-tariff treatment for 100 percent tariff lines, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the three-day Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing yesterday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Since 2005, China has been offering tariff-free treatment to some of the least developed countries in Africa for the goods they export to it, with the policy coverage continuously expanding.

China had implemented zero tariffs on 98 percent of products imported from 27 of the least developed countries in Africa as of June 30, Xu Jianping, director of the National Development and Reform Commission's regional opening department, said on Aug. 29.

Thanks to the trade facilitation measures, China ranked as Africa's largest trading partner for 15 straight years, with bilateral trade between the two reaching a record high of USD282.1 billion last year, Xu added.

Granting least developed countries zero-tariff treatment will help address the development bottlenecks African nations have encountered recently, including difficulties in boosting export growth and a shortage of foreign exchange, Zhu Ming, director of the regional cooperation office of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, told Yicai.

Further increasing the duty-free ratio will also help promote more high-quality African agricultural products to enter China and further optimize the bilateral trade structure, Zhu pointed out.

China's imports and exports to Africa rose 5.5 percent to a record of CNY1.19 trillion (USD168 billion) in the seven months ended July 31 from a year earlier, according to the country's customs data.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev