China hails Botswana�s �future potential�

Mpho Mokwape | Thursday April 13, 2017 14:20

The Chinese foreign ministry says it will continue to open its doors for foreign aid and investment to African countries willing to foster bilateral relations as the continent has a market potential which could be beneficial to the world trade industry.

briefing the African journalists on China-Africa relations, the Ministry’s deputy director-general for African Affairs, Dai Bing said the foundation of China’s independent foreign policy was to strengthen relations and cooperation with African countries.

He said the continent had the potential to be one of the market leaders in the world, hence the interest from China to continue fostering relations to help with the capacity building especially in the industrial sector where most countries are lacking. “Africa lacks market expertise especially in the industrial sector and China on the other hand had seen growth in the sector and is willing to share with the continent something which could be beneficial for the parties. Our interest in Africa is to help them build industry systems that are sustainable and strong,” he explained.

Dai said the cooperation between the parties was to embrace the international society whereby they are not seeking power limit but the development for all countries more so that the cooperation has had endless opportunities, one being political stability in many countries.

He noted that there has been a change in the Africa-China cooperation with the focus being more on government led enterprises transitioning into market orientation, merchandise trades gradually upgrading to product capacity cooperation and projects contracts stepping forward to investments and operations.

“Under these models the China-Africa investment and financing cooperation are becoming a major growth point in the relations. We are able to do business in the continent as part of strengthening the bilateral relations,” he added.

However Dai acknowledged that it was not easy doing business in most African countries due to political instability, lack of infrastructure and more importantly on issues of law and regulations. He gave an example that a mere paperwork that can take three days in China, in Africa can take three months or up to a year which at the end deters most business people from even trying.

He maintained that Africa needs to change on its laws and regulations for the sake of growth and that they should be more open especially about taxation laws as they are the most important aspects of doing business.

On the domestic affairs, Dai said China’s supports to the development of Africa will not interfere in the domestic affairs of the continent meaning that they will never impose their will and political beliefs.

“The only key is to link the progress of Africa to China’s independent, sustainable development so as to achieve mutual benefit and prosperity rather than being the influencer in domestic affairs especially politics,” Dai said.

On a side interview with the publication about the disparities observed in terms of investment in different African countries, Dai said mostly it is influenced by open markets where it seems there was more investment.

He said in the past East African countries have been more open to China therefore most investments were piloted in that region alone but as time went by other regions became more relaxed in opening to them.

Dai said on the Southern region, Botswana has been emerging as the potential market for future investments and cooperation on a larger scale.

*Mpho Mokwape is in Beijing, China on the ongoing Fourth China Africa Press Centre Programme, with other 27 African journalists to experience and explore the oriental giant.