55 Zambians attend Chinese trade fair
Written by Likezo Kayongo in Guangzhou, China
Sunday, October 18, 2009 3:13:16 AM
All the talk about poverty reduction amounts to nothing unless Zambia can develop business and industry that will create wealth for the people, Zambia China Business Association (ZCBA) chairman Sebastian Kopulande has said during his visit to China.
ZCBA sent a delegation of 55 business people, mostly from the private sector, to attend the 106th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou. The event, also known as the Canton Fair, is among the world's biggest fairs and will run up to the end of this month. It opened its doors to the public last Thursday with over 55,927 exhibitors.
Kopulande noted that despite a big public campaign in the media on the fair in China, only National Housing Authority (NHA) from the public sector was in attendance.
“This initiative by [ZCBA] is intended to bring the Zambian people for exposure and a lot of publicity was done [on] ZNBC, Times of Zambia, Daily Mail and in The Post but we only have National Housing Authority as the only institution from the public sector,” said Kopulande.
He said there was no other institutional arrangement that could develop the country other than a strong business private sector.
And ZCBA vice-chairman Elias Mpondela said the initiative by the association to organise Zambian businesspeople from the private sector to attend the annual fair started as far back as 2004, after the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry showed no interest to participate.
''As individuals we set up Zambia-China Business Association and tried to engage ministry of commerce but they were not coming forthcoming,” he said.
Mpondela was happy that this year's Zambian delegation to the fair was the highest from the time the association started participating in the event.
“I am very excited that as an association, we managed to get a number of 55 businessmen from the private sector. This in itself is testimony that Zambians are moving into a right business path,” said Mpondela.
Jophael Chikoli, the director of Polite Car Hire Limited, said most of the countries were there to see what China could offer and it was an upcoming market as well as a member of the Group of 20 (G20) countries.
“As a Zambian businessman I have a privilege to come and see what China has put up as a country in a right path economically. We should tap from them and start production than coming here to buy finished products,” he said.
Chikoli's wish is to see the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry take up the challenge and come up with deliberate policies to stimulate economic growth.
Labels: CHINESE, TRADE FAIRS, ZCBA
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Sata condemns Chinese investments in Zambia
By Chibaula Silwamba
Thursday July 05, 2007 [04:01]
PATRIOTIC Front (PF) president Michael Sata has likened the investment partnership between China and Zambia to that of a horse and a rider. And Zambia-China Business Association (ZCBA) chairman Sebastian Kopulande observed that ZCBA would not say they were satisfied with poor quality jobs offered to Zambians by Chinese investors but nevertheless there are obs bejing created.
Speaking to BBC’s senior Africa correspondent Orla Guerin on Chinese investments in Zambia at Courtyard Hotel in Lusaka on Tuesday, Sata said in the partnership, Zambia was the horse while China was the rider.
Sata said Chinese investment had not benefited Zambians in any way.
Sata said Chinese investors were just plundering everything in Zambia while the ordinary Zambians did not see any visible investments.
He said the Chinese investors had failed to manage most of the companies they had taken over from the previous owners.
Sata cited Mulungushi Textiles, Maamba Coal Mine and Chambeshi Mines, where he said the Chinese investors had failed to improve productivity.
He observed that the Chinese were not adding any value to the raw materials but instead they were extracting and exporting the materials in raw form.
“They export copper ore. They dig the whole soil,” he observed. “The Chinese are not the first miners to come to Zambia. The mines were under the Anglo Americans and ZCCM under nationalisation, probably we would not have known what we are talking about, we would have thought this is the way where people dig copper and take it away.”
Sata observed that there were many Chinese labourers working in Chinese companies than the local people.
“When the British came to Zambia, they did not bring British men to come and drive graders and bulldozers. They trained people here,” Sata said.
“The Chinese, it’s very nice for people to dramatise that they are bringing US$900 million. For every dollar, the Chinese bring one China man. They are here pushing wheelbarrows.”
However, Sata said he did not hate the Chinese per se but hated their discriminatory ideas.
“If you move the whole Cairo Road and Lusaka, you will not see any impressive building but we are told there are more than 80,000 Chinese,” he said. “We don’t see their investment.”
Sata said Zambians were poor because the Chinese had been given a blanket red carpet to invest without benefiting the locals.
But Kopulande said Chinese investors had created jobs although he could not say ZCBA was satisfied with poor quality jobs.
“We are not saying that we are satisfied with poor quality jobs. No. What we are saying is that jobs are created nevertheless,” responded Kopulande, to Guerin who had observed that he was sounding like he was saying Chinese’s low paying jobs were okay.
“The type of jobs obviously depends on the type of industry one is involved. If an investor is investing in agriculture, I don’t think the investor will be interested in employing a banker or a computer programmer who will be sitting there in a high paid job.”
He said any country had labour laws that applied to employers.
“On very poorly paid jobs, that is a matter for the authorities to deal with. Any country has labour laws and each country has to make sure labour laws are upheld,” he said.
He said Chinese investment had so far created about 10,000 jobs for Zambians.
Other than employment creation, Kopulande said the major benefit that Zambia had gained from Chinese investment was capital formation and value addition to raw materials.
He said using Chinese technology, Zambia would be able to export value added products.
“I think Chinese investment like any other is beneficial to the recipient country. I think that the deals that Zambia is making with China are more beneficial to the Zambian economy,” he said. “I don’t want to attach emotions to this debate; I would rather deal with the facts and figures.”
Later in an interview, Kopulande said Chinese investment currently stood at over US $400 million.
He said there were over 180 Chinese companies in Zambia.
Kopulande anticipated a three-fold increase in Chinese investment in the next two to three years following the US$900 million to be invested in the Chambeshi Multi-Facility Economic Zone.
Labels: CHINESE, ORLA GUERIN, SATA, ZCBA
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