Africa's dream of feeding China hits hard reality (2/2)
Tue, June 28, 2022, 1:05 AM
By Duncan Miriri and Joe Bavier
(Continue)
GREEN LANES
When it comes to food and agriculture, China's imports were
worth $13 billion two decades ago. By 2020, they had leapt to $161 billion but
Africa only accounted for 2.6% of that.
China's African Affairs chief Wu said harnessing that growth
would ensure balanced trade, increase African employment opportunities and help
the continent industrialise.
President Xi's plan
calls for centralized clearance zones, or "Green Lanes", to speed up
inspections of agricultural goods from Africa, more zero-tariff access and $10
billion in trade finance for Chinese firms importing from the continent.
On paper, China's growing food needs present a huge
opportunity for Africa to leverage agricultural exports to raise foreign
exchange, said Lauren Johnston, visiting senior lecturer at University of
Adelaide's Institute of International Trade.
"The debt situation has brought it to the fore,"
she said. "In the first instance it's just a super logical
investment."
But some countries are struggling to take advantage of the
opportunities, such as Kenya. It's the biggest producer of avocados in Africa
and exported $154 million worth last year, mainly to Europe.
Eric Were at the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service's
(Kephis) said they had jumped through hoops to get 10 avocado companies cleared
this year for Chinese exports.
"For the Chinese, we need to inspect the orchard, we
need to inspect the packhouse and we need to inspect the fumigation
facilities," he said.
He said Kakuzi, Kenya's biggest avocado grower, spent a
month showing it could track its produce from the seeds, to how trees are
managed, and how the avocados are harvested, processed and packed. By contrast,
the European Union only requires inspection at the point of exit, Were said.
"When they
come, quite often they find that we are not doing well," Emmanuel
Mutahunga, Uganda's Commissioner for External Trade, told Reuters.
RED LINES
Tanzanian coffee farmers have struggled to make their mark
too while in Namibia, it took nine years from the signing of a beef export deal
to satisfy Chinese regulators, leading to the first shipments in 2019.
Wu said China's planned initiatives would help African
farmers improve their quarantine and food safety capacity, though Mei and
Johnston said any loosening of phytosanitary regulations for African imports
was unlikely.
"There's no bigger red line than China and food
security," Johnston said.
China is also missing out on other ways to accelerate
access, say experts such as Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist at the
Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.
He said Beijing could negotiate broad trade deals with
African countries and regional blocs, as the EU does.
Instead, China continues to do bilateral deals, and even
then only on individual products.
"The core message here is for China to be a bit more
open to Africa's food exports," he said. "A lot of it's going to have
to come down to individual countries negotiating better deals."
South Africa's citrus industry was among the continent's
early trailblazers in China, signing its first protocol with Beijing in 2004.
It exported 162,000 pallets of fruit in 2021, but success didn't come
overnight.
Yet Britain and the
European Union, which have stringent food safety standards, are still by far
the top destination for South African citrus, accounting for 44% of exports
last year.
"When you want to go to China, you have to get a
separate protocol for each agricultural product. It averages at about 10 years
for each product's protocol to be concluded," Chadwick said.
"Unfortunately, China does this one product at a time."
(Duncan Miriri reported from Thika, Kenya, and Joe Bavier
reported from Johannesburg; Additional reporting by Elias Biryabarema in
Kampala, Ellen Zhang in Beijing, Nuzulack Dausen in Dar es Salaam, and Nyasha
Nyaungwa in Windhoek; Editing by David Clarke)
Translation
（繼續）
綠色通道
在糧食和農業方面，20 年前中國的進口額為 130 億美元。到 2020 年，它們已躍升至 1,610 億美元，但非洲僅佔其中的 2.6%。
中國非洲事務負責人Wu說，利用這種增長將確保貿易平衡，增加非洲就業機會並幫助非洲大陸實現工業化。
他說： “（中國）積極回應非洲國家對中非貿易合作的重要關切。”
習主席的計劃呼籲設立集中清關區或 “綠色通道” ，以加快對非洲農產品的檢查、更多的零關稅准入, 以及為從非洲大陸進口的中國公司提供 100 億美元的貿易融資。
阿德萊德大學國際貿易學院訪問高級講師 Lauren Johnston 說，從理論上講，中國不斷增長的糧食需求為非洲提供了利用農產品出口增加外滙的巨大機會。
她說： “債務狀況使它凸顯出来”; “首先，這只是一項超邏輯的投資。”
但一些國家正在努力利用這些機會，例如肯尼亞。它是非洲最大的牛油果生產商，去年出口價值 1.54 億美元，主要銷往歐洲。
肯尼亞植物健康檢查局 (Kephis) 的Eric
Were 表示，今年他們已經為
10 家牛油果公司獲得了中國出口許可。
他說: “對於中國人來說，我們需要檢查果園，我們需要檢查包裝廠，我們需要檢查熏蒸設施。”
他說，肯尼亞最大的牛油果種植商 Kakuzi 花了一個月的時間展示了它可以跟踪其產品，從種子到樹木的管理方式，以及牛油果的收穫、加工和包裝方式。Were
說相比之下，歐盟只要求在出口點進行檢查。
上個月，檢查機構宣布中國當局已決定進行自己的檢查 - 這在隔壁的烏干達進行,並不經常是一個暢順的經歷。
烏干達對外貿易專員 Emmanuel Mutahunga 告訴路透社：“當他們來的時候，他們經常發現我們做得不好。”
紅線
坦桑尼亞的咖啡農也一直在努力取得成功，而在納米比亞，從簽署牛肉出口協議到滿足中國監管機構需要 9 年時間，導致
2019 年的第一批貨物送出。
Wu說，中國計劃中的舉措將幫助非洲農民提高檢疫和食品安全能力，但
Mei
和 Johnston 表示不太可能這是會放鬆對非洲進口的植物檢疫法規。
Johnston 說: “沒有比中國和糧食安全更大的紅線了” 。
南非農業商會首席經濟學家 Wandile Sihlobo 等專家表示，中國也錯過了加快准入的其他方式。
他說，北京可以像歐盟那樣與非洲國家和地區集團談判廣泛的貿易協議。
相反，中國繼續進行雙邊交易，即便如此，也只是針對個別產品。
他說: “這裡的核心信息是讓中國對非洲的食品出口更加開放”; “其中很大部分將為個別國家談判更好的交易。”
南非的柑橘產業是非洲大陸在中國的早期開拓者之一，2004 年與北京簽署了第一份協議。2021
年，它出口了
162,000 水果货物托盤，但成功並非一蹴而就。
南部非洲柑橘種植者協會首席執行官 Justin Chadwick 說： “這對南非柑橘來說是一個令人難以置信的市場。”
然而，具有嚴格食品安全標準的英國和歐盟仍是南非柑橘的首選目的地，佔去年出口的 44%。
Chadwick說:
“當你想去輸往中國時，你必須為每種農產品獲得單獨的協議。每種產品的協議平均需要大約
10 年才能完成”; “不幸的是，中國一次只做一個產品。”
So, 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. 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 have already accounted for
$75 billion of that amount. Many African nations now say they simply cannot
afford more Chinese loans and must boost exports to China and agriculture
produce is the key item that they can trade with China.
