A LOGISTICS centre to manage regional trade facilitation between China and landlocked countries in east and central Africa will be under Export Processing Zones Authority. EPZA Investors Facilitation Manager, Lamau Mpolo said in Dar es Salaam last Friday that Ministry of Trade Industry and Marketing has appointed the authority to be in charge of the project.
Mr Mpolo who was briefing Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania, Liu Xinsheng who visited the EPZA pavilion at the 35th Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair which ended officially last Friday, said the logistics centre will be involved with facilitating movement of imports and exports between the two blocs as China’s influence in the region grows.
“We hope to ease movement of cargo between China and countries in the region which use Dar es Salaam port,” Mpolo noted. Among the exhibitors in the EPZA pavilion was apparel manufacturer, Mazava Fabrics and Production East African Limited, which imports fabric from China.
Mpolo said the EPZA which regulates the sector and Special Economic Zones in the country helps investors with processing their projects, government documents and allow them to qualify for different incentives provided by laws. Dar es Salaam port serves six landlocked countries which have trade and development relations with China.
They include; Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Ambassador Xinsheng commended EPZA for facilitating trade and investment pointing out China will work closely with Tanzania to improve economic growth and get rid of abject poverty which is haunting over a third of the country’s 40 million plus people.
“We need to work together in a globalizing world to improve our people’s standards of living through trade and investments,” Ambassador Xinsheng whose country has come under intense criticism from Western powers for dealing with African governments without conditions.
Ambassador Xinsheng dismissed recent remarks made by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton who warned against growing Chinese influence in Africa and Beijing’s conditions free aid and trade relations with the continent. “Some of the people are still having Cold War mentality,” he said as China’s plans to bankroll several power, infrastructure and agriculture projects in the country.
Chinese power and influence has been growing since 2001 when volume of trade with Tanzania was only 93.4 million US dollars (approx. 140.1bn/-) but by last year it peaked 1.65 billion US dollars (approx. 2.37trn/- or a sixth of this year’s 13.5trn/- national budget).
“Ten years ago there were only 12 Chinese contractors with only about 240 Chinese managers and engineers here and nowadays there are more than 30 Chinese companies with nearly 3000 Chinese people and over 30,000 Tanzanian employees undertaking roads, bridges, water supply, buildings, telecommunication works and other infrastructural projects,” a recent statement from Chinese Embassy in Dar es Salaam said.
Local and foreign trade and development experts have urged Tanzania to cease China’s rapidly growing economic prowess and use it to push the local economy grow as well. “We have been working with the Chinese for many years but as they grow and tame poverty we are lagging far behind, we need to catch up,” said Dr George Jambia of University of Dar es Salaam during a China Africa Forum held in Dar es Salaam earlier this year.
Dr Jambia wondered why Beijing has managed to grow rapidly economically and take out of poverty millions of its people while Dar es Salaam and other African countries with a combined population of over 800 million with vast resources, has failed to do the same. "The Chinese managed to take out of poverty 600 million people in the past decade of economic success why have we failed to rescue 100 million people when we export commodities to China," wondered Dr Jambia.
China which is currently the world’s second largest economy after overtaking Japan last year, needs more energy and raw materials to feed its rapidly growing economy. Much of the resources are available in the country and on the continent. Director of Asia Business Centre at University of Pretoria in South Africa, Dr Martyn Davies urged African countries to align themselves with Chinese economic success story.
Dr Davies challenged Tanzania to come forward and take command of the logistics centre to coordinate trade and investment with China in the region. "Last year, China's Export and Import Bank allocated 40 billion US dollars (approx. 60trn/-) for Africa which is available to finance infrastructure development," he noted.
Dr Davies pointed out that Western countries and institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund are trying to block the continent's shift to look East after years of exploitation by the former.
In Tanzania, China is expected to invest 1.7 billion US dollars to develop a 400 megawatts Mchuchuma coal to electricity project through partnership between Chinese firm, Sichuan International and National Development Corporation. The Chinese are also set to finance Liganga iron ore project in Ruvuma region and Singida wind farm project, among many other projects that will be bankrolled by Export and Import Bank.
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