MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
African leader praised China’s way of making business and criticizes West
Rwanda’s Paul Kagame: Beijing brings money and investments Rwandan President Paul Kagame has praised the way China does business in Africa, criticising the West for basing relations with the continent on aid. Huge Chinese investment in African companies and infrastructure is helping Africa develop, Mr Kagame said.
Annual trade between China and Africa is now worth more than 100 billion US dollars.
Chinese companies are active across Africa, but have been criticised by some in the West, who accuse Beijing of failing to promote good governance.
Chinese firms, many of them state-owned, regularly bid for major construction projects at costs which Western firms cannot match. In addition, Beijing also operates a policy of non-interference in domestic affairs.
That has allowed China to do business in areas of Africa, such as Sudan, where Western firms are constrained by human rights concerns.
Speaking to a German newspaper, Mr Kagame - seen in the West as one of Africa's more dynamic leaders - was as critical of the West as he was generous in praise of China.
“The Chinese bring what Africa needs: investment and money for governments and companies,” he told business newspaper Handelsblatt.
“China is investing in infrastructure and building roads,” he said, adding that European and American involvement “has not brought Africa forward”.
“Western firms have to a large extent polluted Africa and they are still doing it,” Mr Kagame said. “Think of the dumping of nuclear waste in the Ivory Coast or the fact that Somalia is being used as a rubbish bin by European firms.”
Although Rwanda received substantial international aid in the wake of the 1994 genocide, which left more than 800,000 dead, Mr Kagame told Handelsblatt that relations based more on trade than aid were now the most useful to Africa.
“I would prefer the Western world to invest in Africa rather than handing out development aid,” he said. “There is a need for help - but it should be implemented in such a way as to enable trade and build up companies.”
The Rwandan leader also said that high trade tariffs prevented African producers from gaining equitable access to global markets.
“It would help Africa much more if industrialised countries allowed us the same trade rights as they give to each other,” Mr Kagame underlined. (BBC)
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Read all commentsAs an American living in Africa, I totally agree that the West has made a serious mistake in only bringing aid, and not infrastructure development, to the continent. On the other hand, I'm not so wild about some of the “investments” made here. In Zambia, foreigners bring business, but also take all the money home with them. Money is bleeding out of this country. So much for “investment”-- it provides perhaps a few low-paying jobs, but not much else for society at large.
Oct 12th, 2009 - 03:10 pm 0He's right though, in that far too much “aid” has gone to despots who've merely padded their own Swiss bank accounts with the money.
Oct 14th, 2009 - 07:34 am 0He's also right that free-trade, rather than the WTO-managed-trade the World suffers under now would be the greatest gift the world could give to Africa.
Lastly, the Chinese know *exactly* what they are doing. They have spent much of the last decade, or two, locking-up natural resources for their own burgeoning economy. They're locking-in sources of critical commodities while the West sleeps. The manner in which they operate is Asian to the core, where business is based on relationships. But it's a major mistake not to have studied and understood Sun Tzu before making any deals.
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