China grants imports of fresh Cambodian coconuts, Venezuelan avocados

Chinese customs have agreed to grant the imports of fresh coconuts from Cambodia and fresh avocados from Venezuela starting from Monday, according to a notice posted on the official WeChat account of China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Tuesday.

The moves followed the visits of Cambodian and Venezuelan leaders to China in September which delivered tangible outcomes. 

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet paid an official visit to China from September 14 to 16.

China and Cambodia have further consolidated their decades-long friendship and pledged further efforts to build a community with a shared future, with a series of consensus reached during the official visit.

The two countries have agreed to promote cooperation based on the "Diamond Hexagon" cooperation framework, which covers political cooperation, production capacity, agriculture, energy, security, and people-to-people exchanges, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

According to Cambodian customs data, in the first eight months trade volume between Cambodia and China reached $8.09 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 1.1 percent. Cambodia's exports to China amounted to $940 million, with a year-on-year increase of 16.8 percent. According to customs data China is the third largest export market for Cambodia, following the US and Vietnam.

With Cambodia's agricultural products entering the "fast lane" of the Chinese market, China has become the main export market for Cambodian rice, fresh bananas, mangoes, and longan, according to media reports.

According to China's Ministry of Commerce, trade between China and ASEAN members rose from more than $100 billion in 2004 to $975.3 billion in 2022. The two sides have been each other's largest trading partners for three years in a row.

The visit of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun to China followed the visit of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros, who paid a state visit to China from September 8 to 14.

China and Venezuela signed a number of cooperation agreements, and reached consensus on Belt and Road cooperation and closer partnership in such areas as economy and trade, education, tourism, space, civil aviation, sci-tech and media, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on September 14.

For the first eight months, the trade between China and Venezuela had grown by 17.6 percent year-on-year to 18.27 billion yuan ($2.50 billion), according to data from GAC.