China-Africa trade expo offers opportunity to showcase top products for export: Mozambican Ambassador

Maria Gustava, Ambassador of Mozambique to China, has highlighted the ongoing China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo as an opportunity to showcase her country's products for export and deepen economic integration between the two nations.

The fourth edition of the expo is running in Changsha City of central China's Hunan Province from Thursday to Sunday, attracting over 30,000 Chinese and African participants.

"Mozambique is going to participate with a very high-level delegation and with a business delegation. This is an opportunity for us to showcase our main sectors, to cooperate more with business people here in China and also to establish ties, to promote trade and to attain more investment. And I believe that this time we're going to open new avenues and we can do more together for economic integration between our two countries," the ambassador said.    Gustava underscored that African countries have much to gain from expanding trade with China, including opportunities to acquire technology, get funding and create jobs.

"Through the trade, Africa is benefiting because we are getting the transfer of technology, we are getting part of this globalized world for the new era of the digital world. So through the trade and through the investment, the Chinese company that are working in our countries, they're bringing the technology, they're bringing the good things for our country. So also this is really beneficial for our country to have the Chinese bringing their knowledge, their funds and their technology. And also we have our side that we provide the minerals, which is creating also (jobs) for us and solving the instabilities that maybe we have in our country," she said.

"Trade openings of Africa also will benefit more, but we need to work more on the connectivity within the African (countries). We have to develop the joint infrastructure that can also benefit more not only for the African countries but for China. Because through this connectivity, you enter Mozambique and can go to other countries. So if there is no connectivity here, things they may not move well. So we have to work more on infrastructure and bringing the countries together and for the integration to be better," the envoy said.

China-Africa trade expo offers opportunity to showcase top products for export: Mozambican Ambassador

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight