KIGALI, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who on Sunday kicks off his six-day China visit to focus on trade and investment ties with the world's largest emerging economy, explains the reasons behind the rise in popularity of Chinese goods in Africa.

"If China is manufacturing things that are required in Africa, and Africa is not producing them, so they should be coming to Africa," said Kagame, while taking an exclusive interview with China's official Xinhua News Agency on the eve of his state visit.

"African countries are flooded with goods from China or anywhere because they don't have their own goods. So that means Africa needs to be producing something, if they are producing what they need, then it will reduce the flooding of goods from other places," he said.

"Why should I complain that there are so many cheap things coming here," he asked. "If I need them, they are welcome."

Kagame said he didn't see any problems if there are some of the imbalance.

"I don't see any problems if there is no imbalance that people are looking at and have reasons to be concerned about they should be raised in discussions with our partners in China," he said.

Kagame stressed China is open to listening to these concerns, saying that many goods from Africa are now granted duty-free access into China.

He referred to China's duty-free market access for 440 items of the commodities from 30 least developed countries in Africa.

"If I am not producing, I should be looking for something to the other side," said the Rwandan president, who leads a 45-memberbusiness delegation to seek cooperation opportunities from China.

Last year, the two countries recorded a total trade turnover of more than 34 million U.S. dollars, according to the Chinese embassy in Rwanda.