People of the South

KUALA LUMPUR: With governments and businesses increasingly interested to discover opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa, the southern part of the continent will likely overtake Asia as the fastest growing region in a couple of years.

With that, sectors closely linked to consumers like financial services, education, retail and healthcare would benefit greatly while mobile telephony would enable southern Africa to leapfrog infrastructure issues, according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) country publishing director Robert Ward.

“One of the reasons (southern Africa would grow the fastest) is that China is slowing because its economy is maturing. But Asia is looking good globally and within that, Asean has slightly over 5% growth a year,” he said, adding that Asia remained a booming economy.

President Xi welcomes visiting Zambian president in Sanya

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L, front) holds a welcoming ceremony for visiting Zambian President Michael Chilufya Sata ahead of their talks in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, April 6, 2013. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

(Source: english.cntv.cn)

Diplomatic relations between Angola and China were established 30 years ago.

At the presentation ceremony of greetings by the diplomatic corps accredited to Angola, held on Thursday, November 10, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos sent a message to the counterpart of China, Hu Jintao, in greeting the 30th anniversary of the establishment of relations Diplomatic between the two countries, to be marked on Saturday.

This Saturday, the 12th, marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Angola. A date has not been forgotten by the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, who addressed this Thursday, the 10th, a message to his counterpart’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao. 

Dos Santos expressed his appreciation “for the cooperation and mutually advantageous multiforme developed fruitfully over the period elapsed”, stressing that bilateral relations “embody today a strategic partnership based on the principles of respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs “.

The Head of State also added that Sino-Angolan experienced in recent years, “a sharp rise to higher levels in different sectors of economic, social, cultural, scientific-technical and political.” Finally, he highlighted the “convergence of views and mutual understanding in addressing international issues, the issues of bilateral and of interest to both countries.”

Faith in change and renewal of Africa

In his speech, José Eduardo dos Santos said he believes in “change and renewal of Africa”, despite the resurgence of conflicts and political crises on the continent cradle. ”We never influence we stopped by ‘african-pessimism’ that certain elite propagated in the recent past,” he said. Angolan leader condemns, therefore, the return to violence and armed rebellions used as a means of achieving state power, including the What is happening in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau, considering it “a step backwards in the process of democratization” in Africa.

LUANDA, Nov 27 2012 (IPS) - “In Luanda there are no matches.” This was the first line of a report written by Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez in the Angolan capital in 1977.

Soap, milk, salt and aspirin were other products that were hard to come by in a city that, he wrote, “surprised” visitors with “its modern, shining beauty,” although it was actually “a dazzling empty shell.”

The emphasis that the Colombian writer put on the shortages suffered by the war-torn country injured the pride of the Angolans who read his report. But he effectively described the chaos inherited from Portuguese colonialism and the war of independence, a year and a half after Angola became independent.

Today, 35 years later, it is the excesses and glaring contrasts that shock the visitor to this city in southwestern Africa. Shiny new cars on brand-new roads and highways lined by thousands of still-empty or half-built office buildings, apartment blocks and residential towers stand in sharp contrast to the sprawling slums around the city.

Signs on construction sites written in Chinese clearly reflect the Asian giant’s high level of participation in the construction of today’s new Angola.

The most ambitious project carried out by companies from China is the Nova Cidade de Kilamba (Kilamba New City), a huge development designed to house half a million people, 20 km south of downtown Luanda.

When it is completed, the new neighbourhood will have more than 80,000 apartments built for large families – the norm in Angola – in buildings five to 13 storeys high. The development is also to be fitted out with dozens of schools, child care centres, health clinics and shops.

Nearly one-quarter of the buildings have been completed. But almost all of them are empty, even though more than 3,000 apartments were already available when the development was inaugurated in July 2011.

Also involved in building the new city are Brazilian firms, especially construction giant Odebrecht, which is in charge of key projects like electricity and water grids and the construction of roads.

The foreign presence in the massive new developments “is not something to be admired, because it shows that there are no national companies with the capacity to build them,” said one of Angola’s most prominent writers, Artur Pestana, better known as Pepetela, who is also a professor of sociology

Living in China Town

Windhoek - As SADC seeks to address its dire need of infrastructure development, it needs to brace itself for an imminent influx of immigrants from China.

SADC is bound to see an influx of Chinese firms and Chinese nationals finding their way to African soil as Chinese firms are taking up construction ventures in Africa and forging alliances with many African states.

There is need to engage such an economic powerhouse intelligently so that we can foster real economic growth and development and meet the needs of our own people.

What is notable is that Chinese firms have a tendency of bringing in their citizens to take up employment in semi-skilled posts that Africans can – and must – take up.

As was the case in the United States in the 19th century, Africa should get ready for the proliferation of the so-called China Towns.

The American gold rush of 1849, as well as the construction of the transcontinental railroad, resulted in an influx of Chinese migrants in the US.

In this very same fashion, SADC needs to be aware that the Chinese dragon will not only move its citizens from its rural areas to urban areas in China, but will also move people from China to Africa.

China has strong ties with most African governments, leveraging on its ties with liberation movements, and its policy of non-interference in domestic political affairs has seen it welcomed on the continent with open arms.

Chinese company Guangdong Bureau of Coal Geology (Guangdong) plans to invest $3.5 billion towards the construction of a 1,200 megawatt (MW) thermal power plant in Zimbabwe, according to a senior official of the company.

While addressing journalists at the Zimbabwe’s Economic Planning ministry, Guangdong’s DG Mu Yong said the Chinese delegation came to “observe and study the possibility of building a thermal power plant.” He furthered stating the “proposed budget is about $3.5 billion for a 120 million watts plant.”

Chinês em Angola

Impacto da imigração chinesa em Angola

“O Chinês”
Esta fotografia retrata um aspecto muito interessante da comunidade chinesa em todo o mundo e em Angola também - a sua enorme (única talvez) capacidade de adaptação. Em Angola há milhares de chineses maioritariamente na construção civil. Têm uma vida de escravos, fazem turnos por uma cama… Contudo já se integraram perfeitamente em tudo. Há chineses a viver nos musseques, já com mulheres negras e filhos mulatos com os “olhos em bico”!

Há chineses taxistas (Kandongueiros), chineses por todo o lado. É uma gente humilde e simpática.

Fotografias: Gonçalo Afonso Dias, Luanda, Angola, 07/2012

This study is perhaps the first to investigate and compare the perceptions of Chinese traders in a systematic way, across several African countries. The Brenthurst Foundation conducted nearly 200 in-depth interviews with Chinese traders in five countries in Southern Africa - South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia, Botswana and Angola - between April 2011 and February 2012. This Discussion Paper distils the key findings of the interviews and, supplemented by additional research, considers inter alia why Chinese traders have proved so successful in Africa and what their experiences might tell us about the future of Chinese-African relations.

Malawi Checks China’s African Advance

All Chinese-run businesses outside Malawi’s four major cities have to close down after a new law barring foreigners from trading in outlying and rural areas. This store, in Lilongwe, will have to apply for a new licence to trade. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

LILONGWE, Aug 4 2012 (IPS) - The move in Malawi to close down Chinese businesses outside of the four major cities has been condemned as xenophobic by rights organisations. A new law enforced Jul. 31 barred foreigners from carrying out trade in Malawi’s outlying and rural areas.

The Investment and Export Promotion Bill required traders to move to the southern African nation’s major cities Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Zomba. The law is an attempt to protect local small-scale businesses from competition from foreign traders.

Two prominent civil rights organisations, the Centre for Development of People and the Centre for Human Rights Rehabilitation (CHRR), have warned the Malawian government against encouraging the victimisation of foreign traders.

“We are worried about the increasing xenophobia sentiments and attacks on foreign nationals who are doing legal business across the country,” the executive director of CHRR, Undule Mwakasungula, told IPS. He argued that the way Chinese traders were being treated was in violation of their human rights.

“Malawi should not be perpetrating xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals under the pretext of protecting the interests of local businesses.”

The new legislation comes immediately after Malawian traders in some rural areas grouped together in May and convinced local government authorities to force out Chinese traders.