Cape Town - Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping began a trip to mineral-rich South Africa on Tuesday aimed at securing resources for the Asian economic power, looking to extend its influence in the African continent.
Beijing sees global mining power and regional financial services leader South Africa as a vital source of commodities to fuel its rapidly expanding economy and industries and as a stepping stone to access other African states.
Xi, pegged as China's next president, is on a three-day official visit to Africa's largest economy, which exports about $5.5bn a year in minerals to the state and has been increasingly a destination of Chinese foreign direct investment.
"As the international landscape evolves and China-South Africa cooperation deepens, the need for our bilateral cooperation is growing, the areas of cooperation are expanding and a confluence of our interests is increasing," Xi said on Tuesday.
The Chinese delegation and South Africa are expected on Wednesday to sign a bilateral memorandum of understanding for co-operation in geology and mining, and a letter of intent related to South Africa's energy sector, among others.
"It makes sense that China's political diplomacy marries that desire to reshape the world with Africa's participation," Jeremy Stevens, an economist at Standard Bank told Reuters.
Standard Bank Group [JSE:SBK], the largest on the continent is 20 percent owned by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in an arrangement analysts felt could foster increased Chinese investment in the continent but has yet to yield big dividends.
Not fully leveragedChinese investors are frustrated with a South African bureaucracy seen as more cumbersome than other major mining countries like Australia.
Implementing resource deals that include infrastructure investments to unlock commodity delivery bottlenecks are also of concern, an expert on China-Africa relations said.
"We don't get to fully leverage the opportunities that China presents us, from an investment perspective, a trade perspective and a market access perspective," said Martyn Davies, CEO of Johannesburg-based Frontier Advisory.
China is South Africa's biggest bilateral trading partner and the focal point of its plan to divert more trade and investment from traditional markets in Europe and North America to the world's fastest growing economies.
"We look forward to more work tomorrow and I am confident that before you leave our country on the 18th we shall have achieved work that would ordinarily be achieved in five years," South African deputy president, Kgalema Mothlanthe, said on Tuesday.
But China also serves as a model of state action in the economy, with Pretoria hoping to join it in the Bric - Brazil, Russia, India and China - group of fast-emerging economies.
But a "Bricsa" grouping seems unlikely for now with South Africa growth projected at 3% this year, hardly the blistering pace of other members. Its economy is also less than a quarter of the size of the smallest Bric economy.
Xi next travels to oil-rich Angola and Botswana in visits seen as helping China's energy and resources security.
China's mineral diplomacy has been criticised for its secrecy and bolstering a few governments that Western states accuse of human rights violations.
World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Chinese companies eyeing African mineral resources must stop making closed-door deals and become more transparent in their investments.
President
Jacob Zuma visited China in August, seeking to increase bilateral financial flows.