The launch of the China–SCO Economic and Trade Exchange Centre and the Guangdong and Macao Development Platform in Guangzhou marks a shift in how Zambia intends to engage with China: from being a passive recipient of projects to a structured participant in China’s regional and multilateral economic architecture.
This development is not symbolic diplomacy. It is a deliberate attempt to embed Zambia into the trade, investment, and industrial networks of the Greater Bay Area and the wider Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) bloc, one of the fastest-growing economic groupings in the world.
READ ALSO: China’s 2026 Africa Tour: People-to-People Diplomacy Stakes
In January 2026, Zambia, under the leadership of its Ambassador to China Ivan Zyuulu, launched the interconnected China–SCO Economic and Trade Exchange Centre and the Guangdong and Macao Development Platform in Guangzhou, an initiative stemming from a Cooperation Agreement signed the previous October between the Zambia Development Agency and the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Development Committee, which itself was based on the 2025 SCO Summit in Tianjin’s directive to convert political cooperation into tangible economic projects.
The Guangzhou-based centre, particularly the Zambia Major Project Cooperation and Exchange Centre in Huadu District, is designed to act as a permanent landing point for Zambian investment opportunities inside China, offering office space, professional services, investor matchmaking, and project promotion.
Wang Rui Cai, Director of the China–SCO Economic and Trade Exchange Centre, publicly committed institutional backing to Zambia’s push, a move that materially lowers entry barriers for Chinese and SCO-region firms exploring Zambia.
These new platforms represent a strategic shift for Zambia–China relations, moving from a historically project-driven engagement focused on discrete infrastructure to embedding Zambia within established Chinese economic institutions, thereby reducing transaction costs, improving information flows, and boosting investor confidence, particularly among mid-sized private firms in Guangdong, Macao, and the SCO region who might previously have overlooked the Zambian market.
Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao form one of the world’s most productive economic clusters. Guangdong alone accounts for over 10% of China’s GDP and dominates advanced manufacturing, electronics, logistics, and export-oriented industry.
The launch of these platforms fundamentally transforms Zambia’s economic relationship with China by shifting from a traditional, project-by-project model reliant on Beijing-centric state-owned enterprises for infrastructure to a continuous, institutional engagement that connects Zambia directly to the dynamic private capital and industrial ecosystems of the Greater Bay Area and the wider SCO region, thereby diversifying risk and refocusing investment toward industrialization and value addition in a manner akin to how other Asian economies integrate into Chinese markets.
The China-SCO Economic and Trade Exchange Centre provides Zambia with access to a rapidly expanding economic bloc of substantial scale and momentum. In 2024, China-SCO trade reached a record $512.4 billion, with trade flows in early 2025 maintaining strong growth of 3% year-on-year, powered by structural trends like booming cross-border e-commerce, a 34% surge in China’s imports from SCO partners, and highly efficient logistics hubs operating round-the-clock customs clearance.
For Zambia, this institutional linkage offers far more than a bilateral channel with China; it provides direct exposure and potential integration into a vast, growing network encompassing the markets of Central Asia, Russia, South Asia, and other emerging economies within the SCO framework.
The Guangdong and Macao Development Platform offers Zambia a targeted gateway into one of China’s most dynamic and investor-friendly zones. Centred on the Hengqin In-Depth Cooperation Zone, which features a preferential 15% corporate tax rate and booming FDI, the platform provides Zambia with a practical pathway to process, brand, and export its products, particularly in mining and agriculture, directly into the Chinese market by partnering with firms optimised for cross-border trade.
These platforms are launching within a critical domestic context for Zambia. While the economy is recovering with growth around 5.8%, driven by a copper rebound, it remains vulnerable to commodity cycles, making diversification through industrial value addition an urgent priority. China’s multifaceted role spanning infrastructure, mining investment, pivotal debt restructuring, and human capital development has set the stage, but the new platforms aim to transform this relationship from project-based assistance to an integrated economic partnership.
Historically, these platforms represent an evolution from basic commerce to sophisticated ecosystem building. The China-SCO Centre stems from a strategy to institutionalise regional cooperation, while the Guangdong-Macao platform has grown from early reform-era trade facilitation into a hub for advanced manufacturing and finance. Zambia is now positioned to tap into this mature, system-oriented approach to reduce transaction costs and attract a more diverse pool of investors from the private sector and the SCO region.
The success of this strategic shift hinges on Zambia’s ability to leverage these platforms beyond resource extraction. Opportunities exist to become a regional processing hub, integrate SMEs into supply chains, and utilise yuan-denominated trade for stability. Despite persistent challenges like regulatory risks and commodity dependence, effectively operationalizing these institutions could mark a structural upgrade in Zambia-China relations, moving the nation toward becoming a trade-integrated industrial partner rather than a passive resource exporter.
