10 March 2010
Chinas' face has suddenly become so ubiquitous in Nigeria's major commercial cities with sub-standard textiles, machinery and auto-parts being the most prominent of the Chinese products being dumped in Africa's biggest market under a relationship that is heavily-tilted in favour of the Asian economic superpower.
The trade offensive by the Chinese finds an easy market in Africa's most populous nation, no thanks to weak border control systems that allow smuggling to thrive as well as the country's serial failure to enforce its own import and foreign trade regulations. The proliferation of Chinese goods in Nigerian markets also makes nonsense of recent government policy that banned importation of some foreign products as part of a campaign to support local industry.
Bashir Borodo who heads Nigeria's Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), describes the Chinese offensive as "disastrous."
"They have done it not only in Nigeria but in other countries also," he told Daily Trust. "I was told recently that they have taken the design of a popular Hausa hat, the Zanna Bukar and are most likely going to bring their own version very soon. That is the Chinese for us." He says the Chinese are only taking advantage of the Nigerian government's failure to create an enabling environment for local industry to thrive as well as the absence of the technological know-how to challenge them. The National President, Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialist (NASSI), Sanusi Maijama'a agrees with Borodo but adds that the Chinese were only cashing in on a window provided by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of which Nigeria is a signatory. He sees an opportunity in China's great Nigerian offensive, saying it ought to challenge local industrialists to improve the quality of their products so they can also compete on the world stage.
"Chinese products are in our markets because we wanted them and they are taking advantage of their government incentives for exports," Maijama'a says. "Their government facilitates adequate incentive for the products to get to different countries not only Nigeria. So there is a serious policy by the Chinese government towards supporting their manufacturers to export to Nigeria but the reverse is the case in Nigeria." The Nigerian government has no clear cut incentive to support her traders or local manufacturers that will give them upper hand or make them competitive. "I think this is the time where Nigerian government should make sure that its export and trade policies encourage and protect local manufacturers and traders."
Nigeria's official quality control agency, the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) signed an MOU with two Chinese inspection agencies to see that importation of fake products are checked at the source of production in China but not much has so far been achieved under this arrangement. Rather than partner with Nigerian entrepreneurs in joint ventures for positive impact in the local economy through which technological capacity is built and transferred, Chinese firms in Nigeria have been criticised for being 'closed' and hardly employ local experts. There are allegations that they even maltreat their local staff.
Nigerian Government may be unhappy with the swamping of its markets with substandard Chinese products, but there is, clearly, a ready market for them - as long as the smugglers keep them coming through the porous borders. In 2009 alone, the volume of trade between Nigeria and China reached about U$ 6.5 billion with China taking the better part of the deal while Nigerian authorities get to boast about being China's second largest trading partner on the African continent after South Africa. While Nigeria's exports to China consist of mainly raw materials, the Chinese, on the other hand, flood Nigerian markets with all kinds of products including motorcycles, machinery equipment, auto parts, rubber tires, chemical products, textiles, garments, footwear and even children toys.
Official records show that there are 30 solely owned Chinese companies or joint ventures in Nigeria with interests in construction, oil and gas, technology, services and education sectors of the Nigerian economy.
And the Chinese are bent on making further inroads into the Nigerian economy in the years ahead. Just late last year, Chinese Companies proposed U$50 billion to buy 6 billion barrels of oil reserves in Nigeria.
While some analysts believe that Nigeria's new economic romance with China is a policy to dump irksome traditional business allies from Europe, partly due to the disagreement in the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that defines trade and development relations between European countries and West African sub-region, others believe that it is part of Chinese strategy to take over the entire African continent markets from the traditional Europeans and American partners.
Either way, China appears to be winning and Nigeria, like most of underdeveloped Africa, looks poised to lose.
Rather than throwing open its doors to resource-hungry Chinese in a desperate clamour for Foreign Direct Investment, analysts suggest that Nigeria's government aim to counter-balance its lopsided trade relationship with China by reviewing the current structure of tariff and non-tariff barriers facing Nigeria's exports to China as well as encourage the diversification of exports to China beyond crude oil.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2010 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
china will not employ locals ,china will not obey any signatory deal ,china will not allow any business rule to proceed simply because they see opportunity and profit when they ignore or offend this rules.our nigerian government is incapable of defending our medium and small scale industries which provide job to millions of nigerians.all our markets is now full of substandard and fake products imported from china.if some thing drastic decision is not done and stop this mess, africa will become another coloniasm to china.