BRUSHING off accusations that its investment is denuding Africa of precious natural resources, China has pledged to help African countries overcome poverty and fight new threats like climate change, which scientists predict is likely to seriously affect the continent.
At the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last week, International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana- Mashabane, who led the South African delegation, supported Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in saying that rumours of China plundering the continent’s assets are malicious and could undermine African states whose participation in the forum is voluntary and based on mutual benefit and co-operation.
Nkoana-Mashabane says relations between SA and China have dramatically improved because China’s engagement with SA has been linked to economic development programmes such as infrastructure development. She believes this has been a common theme for the rest of Africa, where China has been assisting in the development of transport and telecommunication networks, dam building, and power- generation facilities.
Like many African states, which have tended to focus on agricultural development programmes, SA has ensured that China shares its technical agricultural expertise as well as machinery and agricultural infrastructural support.
Countries such as Sudan, Angola and Nigeria have been strong on supplying natural resources to China, with agreements for further joint energy exploration and extraction.
With SA, the relationship has been diversified to include access to SA’s manufactured products to China’s market of 1,3-billion people.
Addressing the forum on Sunday, Nkoana-Mashabane urged delegates to press for the protection of their local environment and for the promotion of sustainable social and economic development.
She repeated the position of former Democratic Republic of Congo prime minister Antoine Gizenga, the current chair of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), who called on China to ensure its development programmes supported the vision of Africa’s economic regions being placed over individual countries’ national interests. She said investment and business co-operation between China and Africa must promote Africa’s industrial development and enhance its production and export capacity.
The continent has identified five special economic zones that it proposes should be established with China’s help to stimulate and strengthen regional economies.
China took the opportunity to encourage African states to speed up the process of removing trade barriers, especially within regional economic communities. A Chinese official told Business Day that Beijing was hoping that regions such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Sadc, etc, would make progress in the establishment of trade-dispute mechanisms.
“We believe these would go a long way to enable our African partners to move products with ease across borders because economic growth at present is seriously being affected negatively by the prevailing barriers to trade and investment,” the official says.
What China is subtly facilitating behind the scenes is aimed at reducing administrative costs due to the great variety of tariffs that African countries charge each other, as well as the different and unaligned customs regulations.
According to Nkoana-Mashabane, SA is also encouraging closer Chinese collaboration with the African Development Bank and regional development banks. SA has called on Chinese commercial banks to open branches in Africa. On transport issues, SA wants a significant improvement in air and shipping links between China and the continent, saying this has the potential to enhance both trade and in tourism.
Meanwhile, China’s bilateral relations in science and technology have seen an increase in the training of South African students and a sharing of technologies.
Nkoana-Mashabane reminded delegates that China has not only focused on trading with Africa, it is playing an important role in Africa’s renewal through peacekeeping in Africa. China’s role in the Sadc region, she says, is highly visible through its active support and growing effect on countries such as Angola, with increased support of government initiatives.
Meanwhile, Wen has flagged China’s participation in the construction of more than 3300km of rail and 3000km of roads decades ago in Sadc. He announced eight new measures that China planned to engage in with Africa, including 10bn worth of concession loans for least-developed states to help alleviate the effects of the global financial crisis, which has seen international financial institutions tighten controls and refuse to help states and business.
Wen has called on developed states not to neglect the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015, saying that in the midst of the financial crisis it could be tempting to suspend the implementation of the commitment made in previous forums. However, China believed this was not the time to abandon developing nations.
In the past 10 years, China-Africa trade has grown from 100m to 100bn. Nearly 1600 Chinese enterprises have started business in Africa, with direct investment stock of 7,8bn. China has almost completed the cancellation of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in debt owed by 33 poor African states.
radebeh@bdfm.co.za