At the 2006 FOCAC meeting, China doubled the number of items that could be imported dutyfree from Africa’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to 440. Eighty -eight per cent of products on the list have at some point been exported to China. The average margin of preference was a 10.4 per cent tariff. The estimated overall economic benefit, using a simple ‘implicit transfer’ method, is $10m per annum (Minson, 2008). Realising the trade benefits for such change is far from easy. There is uncertainty about which products are exempt; many of sub-Saharan Africa’s more important products are excluded and China’s phyto -sanitary requirements are also presenting a hurdle (Danchi, 2010).