Local residents and African traders who reside in South China have many reasons to work together.
Strategic partnerships between China and Africa will offer rich opportunities to both sides.
On the outskirts of Libreville, where women sell fresh fruit beneath palm trees and beach umbrellas, time seems to stand still.
More than 1,000 Chinese private companies and small businesses in Gabon are together making an economic impact on the country that rivals that of the big state-owned corporations.
For years Gabon's economic capital has been cut off, but soon that will end
Naspers, the Cape Town-based multinational, made an audacious bet on a loss-making Chinese Internet company more than a decade ago.
In 2005, William Ng was tasked with kicking off Deutsche Bank's American Depositary Receipt business in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
China may well continue to hold by far the upper hand in Sino-African investments but arguably the most spectacular exception to that rule remains the backing by one South African media multinational in a then-risky Chinese tech start-up back in 2001.
Over the past year, with impressive equity returns and investor confidence sky high, many firms have made initial public offerings in the US. In particular, the fortunes of Chinese companies have changed more than any other firms in a short time.
There is an increasing number of China-based technology startups competing globally in the software, Internet, clean technology, and technical sectors.
The first time the bandits came, Si Su's wife was home alone. She locked herself in the house and managed to scare them off with a warning shot through the front door.
A Chinese program through which thousands of Africans have learned modern farming techniques will be expanded into Cameroon this year, the company behind the initiative says.