China vows to make SA priority investment destination
December 4, 2014, 3:56 pm

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcoming ceremony for visiting South African President Jacob Zuma before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 4, 2014 [Xinhua]

Zuma struggling with sluggish growth at home, seeks to boost trade on a 3-day trip to China.

Zuma has met Xi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday. The South African President was received with a state welcome at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

“China will make South Africa a priority destination for overseas investment, and encourage and support the country’s industries,” the Chinese Premier told Zuma and members of his cabinet on Thursday.

The leaders of the two countries have also adopted the “China-South Africa 5-10 Year Framework on Cooperation” during Zuma’s visit.

South Africa aims to tap trade and investment in China to make up for the downturn in traditional markets in weakly recovering Europe.

Li said China will push for joint projects with South Africa in ports, shipbuilding and fisheries, promote financial cooperation, including cross-border trade settlements in local currency and currency exchange, strengthen cooperation in nuclear power, promote the establishment of joint venture airlines, and use China-made airplanes in Africa’s regional aviation sphere.

China National Nuclear Corporation and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation have signed a cooperation pact on nuclear energy.

Beijing’s relations with South Africa have flourished in the past decade with massive Chinese investment across the country and the African continent.

“We are good friends and good brothers that mutually benefit each other,” the Chinese President told Zuma in Beijing on Thursday.

South Africa-China trade jumped by 32 per cent between 2012 from R205 billion to R270 billion in 2013, making China the country’s largest trading partner.

Beijing has also vowed to aid African countries in their fight against the deadly Ebola epidemic, Li told Zuma on Thursday.

Through South Africa, Beijing is already consolidating ties with African countries, where China is increasingly turning for resources, markets and diplomatic influence.

South Africa is hosting the regional African center of the newly announced BRICS Bank.

South African President Zuma has said BRICS Bank, with its focus squarely on the developing world would operate differently from global lenders like the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

“You know that in the banks that we have, if you ask for help, you end up in more difficulty. That has been the history of countries, particularly developing countries,” Zuma said during his reply to the Budget Vote in the National Assembly in Cape Town in July this year.

“The capital contributions to the New Development Bank will come from the fiscus. It is important to note that the benefitts of participating in the New Development Bank by far outweigh the costs of establishing it,” he said.

Initially, South Africa’s contribution is in the form of paid-in capital of $150 million.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) is pushing its National Development Plan (NDP) to boost the economy, which has failed to grow at the pace needed to dent chronic unemployment.

South Africa through its partnership with China is joining in attempts by the BRICS bloc to upend the international order by fashioning a coalition to resist what these countries view as American arrogance.

“While the two countries are strikingly different in their cultural, political and socio-economic orientation, they are very close in the positions they take on key issues affecting mankind,” said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane referring to common positions on Syria, Palestine and Iraq.

In an interview to CNBC earlier this year, Zuma said China is unlike former Western colonial powers “who still act like Africa’s master”.

Critics of Chinese investment in Africa have said the Asian giant harbours neo-colonial intentions.

“We welcome foreign direct investment (FDI), we are not discriminating…We’ve taken money from Germany, the U.K. the United States – why was it not a story, why is it a story when the Chinese do so?” Zuma said.

This is Zuma’s first China visit during his second term as President.

TBP and Agencies