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Ms Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the Minister of Aviation on Wednesday said increased intra-African air connectivity will enable Africa seize the opportunity for growth provided by its demographic and resources advantage.

She said Africa with its 1.1 billion population, and China with a slightly higher population of 1.3 billion have a lot to offer each other in Aviation cooperation and partnerships for mutual benefits.

Ms Dapaah was speaking at the opening ceremony of the China-Africa Joint Research Conference and Exchange Programme in Accra on the theme: “China-Africa Regional Aviation Cooperation: Prospects and Policy Recommendations”.

She said the theme for the conference was apt and timely coming at the heels of the Single African Air Transport Market initiative launched by the African Union Heads of States at their Summit in Addis Ababa in January, this year.

The Minister said an efficient and effective air transport system between China and African States would serve as a catalyst for trade, commerce, tourism and investments.

She said Africa, and more importantly Ghana, attached a great importance to the growing cooperation that existed with China in the aviation industry, adding that Air travel was essential to Africa to enhance connectivity, trade, job creation and to drive tourism and economic growth.

Ms Dapaah said although the African air transport industry currently supported nearly seven million jobs and 80 billion dollars in Gross Domestic Products, it faced numerous challenges that hindered the potential growth of the industry including intra-African connectivity, weak human capacity among others.

She said trade between Ghana and China had increased tremendously over the past decade with a trade volume of 6.6 billion dollars in 2015 with a projected annual increase of 18 per cent.

“The link between Ghana and China is growing steadily with the availability of efficient air connectivity being one of the key contributory factors,” she added.

She, therefore, urged airlines in China to take advantage of the numerous Bilateral Air Service Agreements with various African countries and begin operations to several destinations on the continent including Ghana and vice versa.