CHINA plans to develop a free trade area with African countries – to increase the continent’s exports to the far-east nation and offset the huge trade imbalance, a top official has said.

Prof Hu Hailiang, the Vice-Chairman of the Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education in China, told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the envisaged free trade area falls under its new fiveyear development plan slated to begin this year. The free trade area agreement is expected to increase exports of goods from Africa to offset huge trade imbalance between the continent and China, he said “China will negotiate with individual African countries and regional blocks to develop free trade area agreement to promote exchange of goods and services and investments,” he said at a press conference organised after a seminar on new China.

China’s policymakers are compiling the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), whose proposal was adopted at the Fifth Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in October last year. The new five-year national socio-economic development will charter an explicit blueprint for the country’s development over the next five years – and provide more opportunities for the development of other countries. China is Africa’s largest trading partner, surpassing the United States in 2009. According to Brookings Education Institution, in 2012, China’s trade with Africa reached $198.5 billion, while U.S.-African trade in 2012 was $99.8 billion. China’s trade with Africa is only 5 per cent of its global trade total. More than 80 per cent of China’s $93.2 billion in imports from Africa in 2011 were crude oil, raw materials and resources.

Prof Hu said he was pleasantly surprised by the existing high level of friendship and deeply rooted emotions between Tanzanians and Chinese that have built on the friendship of the founding leaders of the two countries, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Mao Zedong. He said he was also pleasantly surprised by the level interest shown by Tanzanians on China’s path of economic and development successes. He said the two friendly countries were focused to promoting further their bilateral relations and enhancing trade and investments for the benefit of both. China and Tanzania had a big room for cooperation with great emphasis on construction, road and railway infrastructure development, investments in energy infrastructure projects and modernisation of agriculture.

Prof Hu said another important area will be promotion of industrial capacity for Tanzania to help the East African country develop labour intensive industries that will create more job opportunities for Tanzanians and improve their living. He hailed the country’s development vision (Vision 2025), saying it was important for a country to chart out its own development path that conforms to her real needs. Tanzania aims at attaining a middle income status by 2025 where the economy will be transformed from a low productivity agricultural economy to a semi-industrialised one led by modernised and highly productive agricultural activities. The Chinese leader said copying strategies of other countries was not advisable as it normally led to a dead end.

Source: The East African Business Week

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