The African Cocoa Marketing Center and the African Coffee Street have just been inaugurated in Changsha, the capital of Hunan, in central China.

This practice aims to connect Africa, the world's largest cocoa producer, with China, whose appetite for chocolate continues to grow. It is also part of Hunan's efforts to establish itself as a hotspot for China-Africa trade cooperation.

According to Xu Xiangping, director of Hunan's department of commerce, the province aims to build a large center of trade and processing of African agricultural products, including cashew nuts, coffee, cotton and rubber. The Cocoa Center and the African Coffee Street are among the first "sub-centers".

Moreover, within five years, Hunan plans to hold a high-level fair, strengthen sectoral cooperation, promote infrastructure cooperation, expand bilateral volume, create platforms for economic and trade cooperation, and encourage people-to-people exchanges.

The cocoa centre will start by selling cocoa mainly from Ghana before introducing products from other African countries.

Edward Boateng, Ghana's ambassador to China, said the establishment of such a cocoa centre was necessary. He called for strengthening cocoa cooperation and research with China to achieve win-win cooperation between Chinese investors and African farmers.

According to Mbelwa Kairuki, Tanzania's ambassador to China, Hunan's geographical position will make it easier for African products to access the rest of the Chinese market, which is "a huge market".

The cooperation mechanism in Hunan, if it is doing well, will play a leading role in local cooperation with Africa for the other provinces, and will stimulate trade cooperation between the central and central-western areas of the country with the continent, says Hong Yonghong, a professor at Xiangtan University.

According to statistics from the Hunan Department of Commerce, trade volume between the province and Africa reached $1.83 billion in the first six months, up 10.4 percent year-on-year.