Hopewell Radebe
24 November 2009
Johannesburg — AFRICAN states are not devising a clear developmental strategy for regional economic communities, leading to international partners thinking the continent does not have a common approach and a vision for growth, says Egyptian ambassador to SA Mohamed Zayed.
Addressing a conference on China-Africa trade and sustainable development at the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg yesterday, Zayed bemoaned the continent's inability to agree on a common developmental strategy that could direct and build on China's partnership.
"We keep establishing partnerships and joining various economic and political forums but there is no clear vision or goals why and what we want to achieve from each of them." He said the fact that people still had to travel to Europe to get a connecting flight back to a neighbouring African country was an indication of how far the relations within Africa still had to go. This was slowing infrastructure development and economic integration, he said .
Zayed also spoke about the inability to build the capacity for maritime trade connections within coastline countries, saying this was also thwarting efforts aimed at increasing inter-Africa trade.
While there were opportunities for growth between China and Africa, the creation of better trading environment between and within African states was even more essential for growth.
Sam Muradzikwa, chief economist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, said that for far too long governments had stalled on harmonising tariffs and trade regulations, which had prevented cross-boarder infrastructure projects from being built.
Negotiations involving more than one country were lasting for more than three years before an impact assessment study was done and a project model was properly put together. This was leading to countries failing to access resources such as the 10bn soft loan for infrastructure programme allocated by China. Muradzikwa said that business and labour could play a role in lobbying governments to move faster on debating and approving essential cross board infrastructure projects because of their potential for job creation.
Former Benin ambassador to Geneva Samuel Amehou said it was unfortunate that at the Egyptian resort of Sham el-Sheikh early this month, China seemed to be the only partner with a clear understanding on how to engage Africa.
There was little put on the table by the 46 participating countries on how the future relations with China would be conducted.
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