31
Jul
Zambia received about $1 billion from Chinese investments between 2009-2013 and with it came Chinese firms and businessmen that have become a common feature of the land-locked African country’s business scene.
Over the last decade, the Asian giant has increased its relation with sub-Saharan Africa countries as it seeks raw materials for it fast expanding manufacturing sector that has powered the China in to one of the world richest nations.
While China’s boom has brought many benefits to Africa, it has also send Chinese businessmen to several countries on the continent seeking new markets for their goods and also coming to work for Chinese constructions companies that have been engaged in massive infrastructure development in the region.
“The environment for investment is very good. Besides that the people (here) are quite friendly,” Lui Xuguang, executive manager at Chinese Commercial Trading Centre in Lusaka, told BBC News.
“We are not taken as foreigners any longer. We have been taken as part of Zambia. Right now we are brothers and sisters in tribes. We always say home is where heart is. Our business is here. Our heart is here.”
The number of Chinese in Africa has increased 10-fold over the last two decades to over 1 million and this has caused some friction with local business owners and workers.
From shopkeepers in Malawi to prostitutes in Cameroon, Africans complain that Chinese competition is making life tougher. Unlike Western immigrants, the Chinese Diaspora comes from the poorest section of society and competes directly for work with Africans, some 80 percent of whom are in “vulnerable employment” according the International Labour Organisation.
“I think there greatest competitive advantage is that they are very hands on,” said Patrick Chisanga, director general at Zambia Development Agency.
“Chinese investors will come here, they will go and visit that they would like to invest, they will lead very simple lives, they will accept any form of accommodation, particularly in the rural areas where condition can be very difficult, where investors from other parts of the world might not be very liberal.”
There have also been complaints that Chinese firms operating in Zambia and other African countries disregard local labor laws and mistreat their African employees.
Chinese mines in Zambia have a record of violent labor disputes. In 2013, the Zambian government was forced to revoke three licenses for the Chinese-owned Collum coal mine after the company failed to pay royalties and workers complained of poor safety standards.
“We have been engaging these investors when they come. We make sure we introduce them to our pieces of legislation, we send our labor officers and others to go and educate them. We have insisted on the culture that we need to have trade unions and we’ve got strong trade unions in Zambia who keep these investors in check,” Zambia Labor and Social Security Minister Fackson Shamenda told BBC News.
Source: http://afkinsider.com/100914/chinese-firms-dig-in-for-long-haul-investments-in-zambia/#sthash.vx276RsY.dpuf