Researchers have to prove claims that Chinese investments in Africa are driven by the Asian country's hunger for raw materials and energy, a senior Chinese conservationist said yesterday.
Speaking at a policy forum breakfast meeting in Dar es Salaam, the China-Africa senior policy coordinator under the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Mr Liu Caifeng, doubted the legitimacy of widely-held claims that Chinese investments in Africa are a ploy for the Asian nation to take away Africa's natural resources.
"There is need for a serious research on this topic," he told The Citizen, explaining that diversification trends in investment sectors, preferred by Chinese firms in Africa, indicate that the world's third largest economy is a genuine investor.
He said the time was ripe for serious researchers to come up with a report on how much of China's investments in Africa goes to extraction of raw materials as opposed to that which goes to infrastructure development, buildings and manufacturing among others.
A paper presented at the meeting by Dr Cosmas Sokoni of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) Geography department indicates that China has of late diversified its areas of investment in Tanzania.
The country, which emerged as the world's number one exporter last year and is home to over 1.3 billion people, now engages in Tanzania's mining, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, energy, health and education sectors, among others.
However, the country's businesspeople are also on record as having colluded with some unscrupulous Tanzanians to defraud the country of revenues through smuggling of forestry products worth $58 million annually between 2004 and 2005.
Cases of cheap and fake products manufactured in China, which create an unfair competition with locally-manufactured products, are also rampant.
A survey conducted late last year by Dar es Salaam regional authorities established that most Chinese entrepreneurs were engaged in businesses other than which their TIC [Tanzania Investment Centre] certificates show.
A number of them rub shoulders with locals in Kariakoo, Sinza and Manzese, selling shoes, sandals and cheap clothes. But most of these goods are said to be produced locally in backyards.
According to Dr George Jambija, from the UDSM Geography department, some of the problems allegedly brought about by Chinese investors, are a result of the continent's own reluctance to move abreast of global changes.
"China has a strategy for Africa, does Africa or Tanzania have a strategy for China . Corruption is a serious crime in China, why do Chinese investors become corrupt only after investing in our countries?" he wondered.
The total market value of all final goods and services produced in China in 2008 (China's 2008 gross domestic product - GDP) reached $4.327 trillion.
This makes it the world's third largest economy after the European Union (accounted as a bloc) and the United States of America.
The country is one of Tanzania's top five investors. TIC records indicate that in 2007 alone, China invested $3 billion in ten African economies, of which $111 million was invested in Tanzania.
In the same year, the total trade volume between the two countries stood at $290 million, of which China's exports were $180 million and imports $110 million.
China's main exports to Tanzania are foodstuffs, motor vehicles, textiles, light industrial products, chemical products, mechanical equipment, electric appliances and steel.
On the other hand, Tanzania's main exports to China are dry seafood, raw leather and logs, coarse copper and wooden handicrafts.
Tanzania is also among the countries that receive huge amounts in China's development assistance.
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