TANZANIA quest to capitalise on China’s industrial relocation to African countries will be a reality if it starts putting in place key infrastructures, University don has said.
Prof Garth Shelton of The University of
Witwatersrand, said though the industrialization is a long term process,
the concept is best if implemented gradually like China itself. The
country’s economic and special zones are key in the realization of the
industrialization strategy.
“Tanzania as well as other African
countries need to create right condition to attract investments,” Prof
Shelton told ‘Daily News’ at the sideline of China-Africa Relations
Roundtable Conference.
The scholar who specialise on
Sino-Africa said, “We need to create skills, transports and other
infrastructure. I think we can do it and next four years Africa will
change,” The roundtable was held prior to the Forum for China and Africa
Cooperation (FOCAC), to look over the shoulder and strategies the way
forward till next FOCAC.
Former China Ambassador to Zambia, Zhou
Yuxiao said the African governments needed to come up with the right
policies to optimize the gains of the windfall from industrial
relocation.
He gave an example of some Railway
Engineers who came from China for inspecting the railway line prior to
rehabilitation but Tanzania imposed taxes on the equipment while Zambia
waived them.
“The engineers’ on Zambian side
collected their item but a month later equipment for Tanzania side where
seating at the port,” Mr Zhou said. He said “paying taxes is of
paramount importance but there should be consideration of the nature of
the project,” Though Dar es Salaam was chosen as the first country for
relocation, the Tazara incident shows Tanzania does not own the process.
This discourages those in authority on
China side. “It is challenging,” said Amb Zhou, “strategies and policies
for attracting capacity transfer and lager scale investment are still
absent in many (African) countries.”
“Capacity transfer does not come
automatically to any given country. It requires certain conditions, such
as political stability, laws and regulations, and incentives policies.
FOCAC seek to deepen Sino-Africa cooperation in trade and investment.
In decade and half, Sino-Africa trade
increased by over 700 per cent to some 220 billion US dollars last year.
China wants the trade volume to Africa to reach 400 billion US dollars
by 2020.
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