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Maipato Veronica Maine, a 27-year-old South African, is confident that the one-year training in e-commerce she received in China will change her life for the better.

Maine is one of the 84 South African graduates who returned from China after undergoing training in e-commerce in late May. She said she learned digital marketing and cross border e-commerce. During the training, she also completed an internship at a company that manufactures electric vehicle batteries in Wuhan, Hubei province.

"The experience was a great opportunity for me to apply theoretical knowledge in a real-world setting," she said. "I hope to partner with the Chinese company and sell their products in South Africa and help alleviate power shortages."

During the internship, Maine acquired valuable skills in market research, focusing on identifying potential buyers of energy products and electric vehicle chargers. She said she managed an online shop which involved finding new customers and learning negotiation skills via email and phone calls.

Maine also learned video and image editing for social media platforms, which she said is a crucial skill for e-commerce. The training also covered digital marketing and cross border e-commerce.

"These skills will be instrumental in helping me run my own business, especially in marketing and understanding the clientele. I'm excited to apply these skills and potentially share them with others, contributing to tackling unemployment in my country," Maine said.

Experimental learning

Tom Mkhwanazi, Chief Executive Officer of the Wholesale and Retail Sector Education and Training Authority in South Africa, said the graduates were sent to China for "experimental learning". The graduates were taken from colleges and schools from different parts of the country and sent to China in May last year, he said.

The South Africans were sent in partnership with the Chinese Culture and International Education Exchange Center. Mkhwanazi said that they have been equipped with skills and they can look for jobs or start their own enterprises.

"I expect the graduates to look for employment or start their own companies to help reduce unemployment in the country and contribute to the economic growth. We chose China because it is leading in terms of e-commerce — they have the competitive edge and we want our youths to be competitive. We wanted them to learn best practices and broaden their horizon," said Mkhwanazi.

Kholofelo Chuene, another participant, said he expects his life to change with the knowledge he acquired in China. With a diploma in marketing, he is in discussion with two Chinese companies to sell their products in South Africa, including one that manufactures kitchenware. Chuene said he would like to teach the South African youths how to use social media to make money.

He said: "I got the experience of my lifetime and it's the history I will tell my children when I get them. We learned about the history and culture of the Chinese people. We were well received and the Chinese love family values and they treated us well."

Mkhwanazi said Amazon has offered to employ all the 84 graduates who returned from China. A South African online shopping platform, Takealot, has also invited them for a discussion on how they could work together.

Ashraf Patel, a senior researcher from the think tank Institute for Global Dialogue, said South Africa can work with China to address its skills gap. He said there could be student exchanges or South Africans sending specific groups to China to learn new technology in general, including artificial intelligence, big data, manufacturing, engineering and construction.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.