CHANGSHA - China-Africa trade on agricultural products has gone through years of fast growth and the trade volume reached 4.78 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, a Chinese official said Saturday.

The figure marked a 40.2-percent rise from the trade volume of the previous year and was 7.7 times that of 2001, said Wang Ying, the director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Wang delivered a speech during the China-Africa Business Cooperation Forum, which was held Saturday to encourage further cooperation on agriculture between the two sides.

China exported 2.45 billion U.S. dollars in agricultural products to African countries in 2011, up 35.7 percent year-on-year, and imports increased 45.2 percent to reach 2.33 billion U.S. dollars, according to Wang.

To help Africa raise local agricultural productivity and enhance food security, China has also set up 25 agricultural demonstration centers and trained more than 4,000 agricultural technicians and practitioners there since 2006.

Wang said the Ministry of Agriculture will continue to promote such cooperation on farming technology and personnel training and encourage more domestic companies to invest in Africa.

China is now Africa's largest trading partner, as well as the continent's top FDI source. The bilateral trade value exceeded 160 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, according to a document presented at the forum.