Zimbabwe: Indigenization Gives African Leverage

Outgoing Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Xin Shunkang and his wife Luo bid President Mugabe farewell at State House in Harare on May 9, 2012. The two countries have a long history of cooperation and solidarity., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

‘Indigenisation gives Africans leverage’

October 23, 2013
Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa
Business Reporter
Zimbabwe Herald

The indigenisation and empowerment policy that Zimbabwe has adopted gives Africans power to negotiate on their resources, a senior Government official has said.

Addressing delegates on the first day of the China-Africa Symposium running in Harare, Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa said the arrival of China gives Africa the way to access development in mineral resources to empower themselves.

“We have one billion Africans who are eager to develop, eager to embrace technology and there is nothing that can stop Africans doing what other continents can do,” he said.

The deputy minister also urged scholars to dig deep into economic themes saying that Africans need to be honed mentally to be able to negotiate soundly on resource issues.

Ambassador Mutsvangwa noted that when the Chinese companies came into Zimbabwe, they were told that they should go to Sydney with their capital.

“That is why this indigenisation is good because it gives us power to negotiate about our resources. It is good for Indians to negotiate about our gold, our chrome and not go to London. This is the beauty of competition. We do not want Africa to be a charity case. We want our chance,” he said.

The Chinese government has pledged a US$20 billion lines of credit to African countries for developing agriculture, manufacturing and small- to medium- sized enterprises. According to the White Paper on China-Africa Economic and Trade Co-operation 2013 issued by China, the loan facility will be in line with expanding co-operation in investment and financing to support sustainable development in Africa.

The White Paper was released at the Fifth Forum on China Africa Co-operation ministerial conference in Beijing last year.

“Against the background of sluggish global economic recovery in recent years, China-Africa trade development has maintained comparatively rapid momentum.

“In 2009, China became Africa’s largest trading partner. In the following two years, the scale of China-Africa trade expanded rapidly. In 2012, the total volume of China-Africa trade reached US$198,49 billion, a year-on-year growth of 19,3 percent.

“Of this, US$85,319 billion consisted of China’s exports to Africa, up 16,7 percent and US$113,171 billion was contributed by China’s imports from Africa, up 21,4 percent. Total China-Africa trade volume, China’s export volume to Africa and China’s import volume from Africa all reached new heights,” read part of the paper.

Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Lin Lin hailed his country’s bilateral relations with Africa.

He said that the co-operation in various fields had produced notable results.