Durban - China's involvement in the African continent is to
further its interests, State Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba said on
Thursday.
"It would be foolhardy and naive to suggest that China
has any intention of being Africa's saviour," he said in Durban.
Gigaba was speaking during the first day of the 13th African
Renaissance conference at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli convention centre.
He said Africans must not be romantic about the nature of
Chinese involvement in Africa.
"While Chinese pragmatism has certainly enabled
infrastructure and broader investment in a range of African countries, the lack
of institutional pre-conditions to such projects has often resulted in
negligible local skills, technology and business development," Gigaba
said.
He said Chinese mostly brought in their own skills and
workers to construct infrastructure.
"Clearly there is a tension between contributing to an African
development process and optimising the short-term benefits for China from an
infrastructure project, particularly in countries unable to negotiate national
development requirements," he said.
He said Chinese decided to be involved in Africa because its
planned economic growth has created a major demand for commodities as well as
large surpluses that needed to be invested abroad.
Gigaba said South Africa needs to develop a strategy for
engaging, if not partnering, China in Africa.
One of the good things about Chinese investments in Africa
is that it would force Western agencies to become more flexible to avoid
becoming irrelevant, he said.
Conference delegates discussed infrastructure issues in
Africa such as roads and economic integration.
Gigaba said African economic integration and the role of
infrastructure development on the continent is the priority of the South
African government.
He said it was bad that intra-Africa trade only totalled
10%, while intra-European trade was 80%.
"What this tale is telling is that Africans are not
trading with one another largely because of the lack of infrastructure
networks, persistent colonial ties and over-reliance on commodity
exports," he said.
The process of economic and political integration on the basis
of infrastructure development must be led by Africans, he said.