Abuja – Prof. Yun Sun of the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, has urged Nigeria to figure out what its priorities are and take advantage of its relations with China to get what it wants.
Yun said this at a two-day Africa Today Economic Summit in Abuja on Tuesday.
The theme of the summit is “China-Africa Economic Co-operation: who really benefits’’.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the summit seeks to answer the questions; what does China really want from Africa? Is it a Win-Win situation?
According to her, if both sides are not winning, the relations between China and African countries won’t be sustainable.
“From a business point of view if it’s not a win-win, if both sides are not winning, it won’t be sustainable.
“So the Chinese definitely have a lot to gain from its economic engagement with Africa, but on the other hand they do believe that it is also helping African countries to grow.
“In the long term there is a lot of reliance on natural resources is only in the back of the minds of African leaders where their countries are well endowed when it comes to natural resources.
“I think the Chinese are prioritising two things the first one is industrial capacity cooperation that the Chinese government are making conscious efforts to restructure their own economy and to move some of the export oriented labour intensive industries to Africa.
“The other issue they are focusing on is infrastructure development in Africa. The Chinese do believe that sound economic development will have to be based on some infrastructure system.
“That if you don’t have the road to move people and things around, your economy will not be developing at the rate that you wish.
“My advice to the Nigerian government vis-a-vis China in their interaction with the Chinese government, I will say that the most important thing is that the Nigerian government needs to figure out what their priorities are and then strategise in terms of how to negotiate with China to get what they want.
“Unless the Nigerian government knows exactly what they want in the long run, and knows what sound economic decision making looks like, they cannot look to Beijing to provide sound economic decisions to them.’’
Yun said that China’s interest in Africa was multi-dimensional, namely: political, economic, security, and ideological.
She also cautioned Africa in its dealings with Chinese private firms.
“The most adventurous Chinese players in Africa, is the private companies or individual businessmen. A conservative estimate claims that at least one million Chinese nationals are operating inside Africa.
“These are independent, entrepreneurial players whose activities take place at the grassroots level in Africa.
“The case of illegal Chinese gold miners in Ghana illustrates how these individuals have successfully evaded supervision by African governments and the Chinese embassy until they run into political or legal trouble,’’ she said.
Also, Sir Vince Cable, a former United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said Nigeria needs to develop as quickly as possible, a strong non-oil sector to maintain its economic growth.
“Nigeria is currently passing through a difficult stage; the collapse of the oil price means that the economy is much more vulnerable.
“So investments from China and elsewhere should be very welcome.
“And my overall approach, which I developed in the British government is that with China you have to realise that they are very hard-headed and they are interested in advantage to China.
“Nothing is wrong with that and it is possible to have a good relations in trade and investment relationship with the Chinese.
“But equally one should not be sentimental; as I understand, they are making promises for large credit lines with Nigeria; this not aid, this is commercial business.’’
Cable said although Chinese companies were guilty of using mainly Chinese labour, cheap manufacturing materials and neglecting governance and environmental issues, it still had a lot to impact on Africa. (NAN)