China takes raw materials out of Afrika, turns them into finished goods in China, and brings those finished goods back to Afrika to sell to the masses. This is what they call trade.
This is the same recipe for disaster that Europeans used to enslave and under-develop Afrika early on.
CHINA - AFRIKA "TRADE" HITS $170BILLION
China-Afrika trade amounted to US$170 billion, up 14.1%.
Among these, China’s exports to Afrika reached US$94.74 billion, up 2.7%; China’s imports from Afrika reached US$75.26 billion, up 32.8%;
THE NEGATIVE TRADE
The main products China exports to Afrika are machinery and electronics, textile and apparel, hi-tech products and finished goods, while imports from Africa concentrate on crude oil, iron ore, cotton, diamond and other natural resources and primary goods.
Meaning: China imports about $75.26 b worth of raw materials from Afrika, and dumps $97.4b worth of finished goods on Afrika, which are most likely to be from the same raw materials taken from Afrika now sold at a higher price after their transformation.
HOW CHINESE DUMPING IS KILLING AFRIKAN INDUSTRIES
(Wikipedia)
A negative consequence of China's low-cost consumer goods trade is that it only goes one way. China does not purchase manufactured products from Afrika, while cheap Chinese imports flood the local marketplace, making it difficult for local industries to compete.
A noticeable case is the Chinese textile industry, which has hit Afrika like a tsunami. In many countries, textiles are one of the first manufacturing industries to develop, but the African textile industry has been crippled by competition[25] The negative consequences are not easily resolved:
Afrikan consumers give praise to Chinese textiles, and they are often the first clothes they can afford to buy new; yet local manufactures are badly wounded, raising opposition and concern over the loss of local jobs.
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION
You can now see that what Afrika is engaging with China isn't trade, but dumping of Chinese goods on Afrika after taking away resources from Afrika.
This has been the case since the western Colonisation of Afrika: we produce Cocoa and it gets shipped to Europe and then back to us as chocolate, or our oil is extracted and taken to Europe to be refined and brought back to us.
The Chinese are not entirely to blame for these, the blame goes mostly to we Afrikans especially the Afrikan Leaders.
It is time for us to Think like humans and stop making mockery of ourselves:
Let us ask ourselves: why do these people like taking our resources to their place to transform them there, instead of in Afrika where they still sell most of them, since transforming them in Afrika would be the least stressful since the resources are in Afrika?
The answer is jobs, employment, prosperity.
If you transform those raw materials in Afrika, the jobs will be in Afrika and the development and GDP growth will benefit the Afrikan Economy and people, but if they take the stress to export them as raw materials to their lands, the benefits will be to their people.
So all the so-called trade with foreigners have been them thinking First and Only of their people and trading on us, while we think nothing of ourselves and put others first.
It is therefore time for us to think home, let us also think and play their games, let us stop exporting raw materials and start transforming them in Afrika. Let us start producing those things we import from China or America or Europe in Afrika.
When we start doing these, millions of jobs will be available for Afrikans, poverty will die down so much and Intra-Afrika trade will be highly boosted while we grow together, while the so-called China-Afrika trade will fiddle down because their trade with us is dependent on our unproductivity.
Afrika think smart
#MadeInAfrika
#IntraAfrikaTrade
credits:
panafricanalliance.com
Wikipedia
africa-business.com
Image credit: thedayco.uk
Research work by
Eze Chimere Nwauzo
Chairman of OAF
#joinOAF
Eze Afrika
