Walking into the office of David Munaier (Chinese name Meng Dawei), director of the Africa China Studies Center at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, reporters saw Chinese landscape paintings hanging on the walls, and decorations with Chinese elements such as giant panda dolls and models of the Temple of Heaven placed on display shelves. Every time I come back from visiting China, I bring some special gifts to my family and friends to let them have a better understanding of China, "Meng Dawei said with a smile. Meng Dawei has long been concerned about China's development. Currently, the world economy is full of challenges. China's total economic output will exceed 130 trillion yuan for the first time in 2024, an increase of 5% over the previous year, leaving a deep impression on Meng Dawei. He described the performance of the Chinese economy as "resilient": "Faced with many difficulties, the total size of the Chinese economy has remained the second largest in the world, and the economic growth in 2024 is equivalent to the economic volume of a medium-sized country in one year, which is a remarkable achievement." He added, "From a global perspective, China's economic growth rate ranks among the top in the world's major economies, and China continues to be an important driving force for world economic growth." China's new energy vehicle production has exceeded 10 million units for the first time, and the world's fastest high-speed railway CR450 high-speed train with a commercial operating speed of up to 400 kilometers per hour has been released. Artificial intelligence models such as DeepSeek have helped traditional industries transform, and the installed capacity of renewable energy ranks first in the world... Meng Dawei pays special attention to China's efforts in new energy vehicles. Achievements in high-end manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and other fields. In his view, China's economic structure is constantly optimizing and adjusting, and "greening," "digitization," and "intelligence" have become key words for understanding the Chinese economy. According to the "2024 Global Innovation Index Report" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China's global innovation index ranking rose to 11th place in 2024, making it one of the economies with the fastest improvement in innovation power in the past 10 years. China attaches great importance to innovation and investment in research and development, constantly breaking through key core technologies, and continuously emerging new quality productivity. Meng Dawei stated that innovation provides a continuous source of power for the sustained improvement of the Chinese economy. From continuously reducing the negative list for foreign investment access and clearing restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, to steadily promoting the opening up of the service industry and expanding pilot projects for opening up in telecommunications, healthcare, education, and other fields, China has continuously relaxed market access and actively attracted foreign investment. "While promoting high-quality development, China continues to expand institutional openness, share Chinese market opportunities with foreign-funded enterprises, and promote the construction of an open world economy." Meng Dawei said that in 2024, China's total import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" will account for more than 50% of foreign trade for the first time. "This is a positive signal, indicating that China will adhere to promoting high-quality joint construction of the" the Belt and Road ", improve the level of economic and trade cooperation with countries jointly building, and will strongly promote mutual benefit and win-win results.". Thanks to the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" initiative and the China Africa Cooperation Forum mechanism, China Africa economic and trade cooperation has become increasingly close. China has maintained its position as Africa's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, and the proportion of China Africa trade volume to Africa's overall foreign trade volume has steadily increased. In recent years, through measures such as exempting tariffs and establishing and expanding a 'green channel' for African agricultural products to be exported to China, high-quality African agricultural products such as Benin pineapples, Ethiopian coffee, Rwandan chili peppers, and Ivorian cashews have entered the vast Chinese market, and related trade has driven the economic development of African countries. Meng Dawei expressed his hope that Africa and China will continue to strengthen cooperation in agriculture, industrialization, and talent training, providing impetus for Africa and China to work together towards modernization. (New Society)