Published by the government of Zimbabwe
10 November 2009
opinion
Harare — ONCE gain, we salute Chinese and African leaders for holding another successful Sino-Africa Summit and making pledges to boost win-win co-operation between the two billion plus people of the two regions.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's pledge to grant African countries US$10 billion in low-interest development loans for social programmes and infrastructure development, and a US$1 billion loan programme for small and medium enterprises could not have come at a better time as many African countries reel from the ongoing global recession.
We salute the move to encourage Chinese financial institutions to lend to smaller African firms, wipe out some of the remaining debt on interest-free loans that it had previously granted, grant market access for African products and the commitment to help build 100 clean-energy projects across Africa.
Such commitment, coming as it does at a time of global recession, proves China's commitment to engage Africa on a win-win basis.
This pledge offers an excellent opportunity, that our Government here should harness to help bust the illegal economic sanctions that Western nations refuse to lift to this day.
It is not a secret that the economic challenges our country is facing stemmed from the financial squeeze effected by the economic sanctions and curtailed production in industry, again due to the sanctions and sabotage by some British-owned companies.
All economists are agreed that these challenges can only be solved by revitalising the industrial sector through the emergence of genuine, business-minded entrepreneurs to take the place of those who went to bed with London and Washington.
For that to happen there is need for both Foreign Direct Investment as well as investment in an indigenous industrial base.
The Government's empowerment drive, and the land reform programme are slowly, but surely, commissioning indigenous business people to take their rightful place in the economy.
The Look East policy, on the other hand, is also harnessing the FDI component the country badly needs since China, Zimbabwe's biggest strategic partner in the initiative, now dominates the FDI flowing into the country.
China is now the single-biggest investor in Zimbabwe with a portfolio of over US$600 million.
The importance of Chinese investment cannot be over-emphasised given that it is coming from a country with the fastest growing economy in the world today, with projections that it will be the biggest over the next two decades.
Not only that, but the investment is also based on sound relations grounded on the noble principles of mutual co-operation, non-interference and respect for each other's sovereignty.
Such investment is unlikely to be fettered by the trappings of politics as we saw with some British companies that have been, and still are, toeing London's line in the latter's quest for illegal regime change.
To this end, we encourage the Government to give incentives to encourage more investment from the East as Zimbabwe has the potential to become the hub of Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa, if not the whole continent.
Blessed with a sound natural resource base and an abundance of tobacco, textiles and cotton that China is in dire need of, and an educated human resource base, Zimbabwe has what it takes to justify the faith China has bestowed on it.
There are many opportunities and niche markets left untended by those who opted to put politics ahead of business, and if China and Zimbabwe take advantage of existing bilateral agreements, the levels of economic co-operation would be phenomenal.
We, however, urge both parties to go a step further and also invest in knowledge transfer so that Zimbabweans can also learn to fish on their own.
This could be done through exchange programmes where Chinese experts come to impart their skills and work ethics to Zimbabweans, with a counterflow of Zimbabweans going to learn how China managed to be not only the fastest growing economy, but a people's one with something for everyone.
Such a holistic approach would see Zimbabwe coming out of the woods in no time.
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