Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
Africa's dream of feeding China hits hard reality (1/2)
Tue, June 28, 2022, 1:05 AM
By Duncan Miriri and Joe Bavier
THIKA, Kenya (Reuters) - Watching workers poke avocados from the treetops in an orchard owned by Kenyan agriculture firm Kakuzi, managing director Chris Flowers revels in the thought some might soon go to the crown jewel of emerging consumer markets: China.
Taking advantage of Beijing's deeper focus on trade with African countries to help reduce gaping deficits, Kenya struck an export deal with China for fresh avocados in January after years of lobbying for market access.
Six months later, no shipments have left, Kenya's avocado society, the East African country's plant health inspectorate and Kakuzi told Reuters.
While 10 avocado exporters have passed Kenyan inspections, China now wants to do its own audits and, based on the past experience of some other African fruit producers, it could take a decade to get the green light.
"You can actually have a market, but if you can't meet the standards, you can't take advantage," said Stephen Karingi, head of trade at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Reuters spoke to nine officials and businesses across Africa who said Chinese red tape and a reluctance to strike broad trade deals were undermining Beijing's plan to boost African imports.
Ramping up agricultural exports, however, is one of the few options many African countries have to rebalance their trade relationships with China and earn the hard currency they need to service mountains of debt, much of it owed to Beijing.
Take Kenya. Its annual trade deficit with China is about $6.5 billion and it has roughly $8 billion of Chinese debt. It needs nearly $631 million to service that debt alone this year, but that's almost three times its exports to China in 2021.
Many African nations now say they simply cannot afford more Chinese loans and must boost exports to China. In recognition of the need to address the imbalances, or at least stop them getting worse, China announced a shift in strategy in November.
At a China-Africa summit typically used by Beijing to unveil eye-popping loans, President Xi Jinping announced a raft of initiatives to boost China's imports from Africa to $300 billion over the next three years and $300 billion a year by 2035.
What's more, 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land is in Africa, meaning there is huge potential for growth.
"It's a win-win choice for China and Africa," said Mei Xinyu of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think-tank under China's Ministry of Commerce.
TRADE IMBALANCES
For decades, China has loaned billions of dollars to Africa to build railroads, power plants and highways as it deepened ties with the continent while extracting minerals and oil.
That has helped China-Africa trade balloon 24-fold over the past two decades and two-way trade hit a record $254 billion last year despite the turmoil of the global pandemic.
But for $148 billion of Chinese goods shipped to Africa in 2021, China imported only $106 billion and five resource-rich nations - Angola, Congo Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo South Africa and Zambia - accounted for $75 billion of that.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is the top importer of Chinese goods, hoovering up $23 billion worth in 2021, but those imports dwarfed Nigeria's exports to China by eight times.
The disparity is more stark in Uganda, where about 80% of its exports are agricultural products such as coffee, tea and cotton. It sent goods worth $44 million to China last year but its imports topped $1 billion.
Chinese customs data shows that more than three-quarters of African nations have trade deficits with Beijing.
Wu Peng, Director-General of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of African Affairs, said such imbalances were unintentional.
"China has always been focusing on promoting the balanced development of China-Africa trade," he told Reuters.
African leaders have been pushing for years for action on trade, said Hannah Ryder, founder of Development Reimagined, an African-owned development consultancy headquartered in Beijing.
The pandemic, meanwhile, sharpened their focus on debt. Some 60% of low-income countries - mostly in Africa - are either in debt distress or at high risk, with debt service burdens at their highest in 20 years.
"African countries were under pressure to not take on more lending," Ryder said. "Trade is where (the Chinese) think they can do something."
(to be continued)
Translation
肯尼亞, THIKA（路透社）- 在肯尼亞農業公司 Kakuzi 擁有的果園裡，董事總經理 Chris Flowers看著工人們從樹梢上戳牛油果，陶醉在思想中認為這些牛油果可能很快就會前往新興消費市場的皇冠上的明珠：中國。
肯尼亞利用北京更深入地關注與非洲國家的貿易以幫助減少其巨大的赤字，在經過多年的市場准入遊說後，於今年 1 月與中國達成了新鮮牛油果的出口協議。
六個月後，肯尼亞的牛油果協會、東非國家的植物衛生檢查局和 Kakuzi 告訴路透社，沒有任何貨物被送出。
雖然有 10 家牛油果出口商通過了肯尼亞的檢查，但中國現在希望自己進行審視，而且根據其他一些非洲水果生產商過去的經驗，可能需要十年時間才能獲得批准。
聯合國非洲經濟委員會貿易主管 Stephen Karingi 說： “你實際上可以擁有一個市場，但如果你不能達到標準，你就無法利用。”
路透社採訪了非洲各地的九名官員和企業，他們表示，中國的繁文縟節和不願達成廣泛的貿易協議正在破壞北京增加非洲進口的計劃。
然而，增加農產品出口是許多非洲國家必須重新平衡與中國的貿易關係, 並賺取他們需要的硬通貨來償還大量債務的少數選擇之一，其中大部分債務是欠北京的。
以肯尼亞為例, 它對中國的年度貿易逆差約為 65 億美元，中國債務約為 80 億美元。僅今年它就需要近 6.31 億美元來償還債務，但這幾乎是其 2021 年對中國出口的三倍。
許多非洲國家現在表示，他們根本無法負擔更多的中國貸款，必須增加對中國的出口。認識到有必要解決或至少阻止失衡惡化，中國在 11 月宣布了戰略轉變。
在北京通常用來公佈令人瞠目結舌的貸款的中非峰會上，習近平主席宣布了一系列舉措，以在未來三年內將中國從非洲的進口提高到 3,000 億美元，到 2035 年達到每年 3,000 億美元。
專家說，理論上，農業是最有前途的途徑之一。中國是世界上最大的食品進口國，而非洲的農業部門既是主要的勞動力雇主，也是經濟活動的貢獻者。
更重要的是，全球60%的未開墾耕地在非洲，增長潛力巨大。
中國商務部的智庫組織,中國國際貿易經濟合作研究院的 Mei Xinyu說: “這是中非雙贏的選擇”。
貿易不平衡
幾十年來，中國向非洲提供了數十億美元的貸款，用於建設鐵路、發電廠和高速公路，加深與非洲大陸的聯繫，同時在非洲開採礦產和石油。
在過去的 20 年裡，這幫助中非貿易增長了 24 倍，儘管全球病毒大流行造成了動盪，去年的雙向貿易達到了創紀錄的 2,540 億美元。
但相對於 2021 年運往非洲的 1,480 億美元中國商品，中國僅進口了 1,060 億美元，而五個資源豐富的國家 - 安哥拉、剛果共和國、剛果民主共和國、南非和讚比亞 - 佔其中的 750 億美元。
非洲人口最多的國家尼日利亞是中國商品的最大進口國，2021 年的進口額達到 230 億美元，但這進口額是尼日利亞對中國的出口8 倍, 相形見絀。
烏干達的差距更為明顯，該國約 80% 的出口產品是咖啡、茶和棉花等農產品。去年它向中國出口了價值 4,400 萬美元的商品，但其進口額卻超過了 10 億美元。
中國海關數據顯示，超過四分之三的非洲國家與北京存在貿易逆差。
中國外交部非洲司司長 Wu Peng 表示，這種失衡是無意的。
他告訴路透社: “中國一直致力於促進中非貿易平衡發展” 。
總部設在北京的非洲發展諮詢公司 Development Reimagined 的創始人 Hannah Ryder 說，非洲領導人多年來一直在推動貿易行動。
與此同時，病毒大流行使他們更加關注債務。大約 60% 的低收入國家 - 主要是非洲國家 - 要么陷入債務困境，要么處於高風險之中，償債負擔達到 20 年來的最高水平。
Ryder 說: “非洲國家承受著不能接受更多貸款的壓力”; “貿易是（中國人）認為他們可以做些事的地方。”
（未完待續）
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