Afroshanghai Blog

General Statistics about Afroshanghai.com visitors in September 2007:

-Pageviews: 17,463

-Visits: 1,934 (from 45 countries and 263 cities)

-New Visits: 32.47%

-Top Countries: 1-China (65.98% of visits); 2-United States (23.16%); 3-Hong Kong (2.84%); 4-United Kingdom (1.14%); 5-France (0.93%)
All the Countries

-Top Cities: 1-Shanghai (41.21% of visits); 2-Changzhou (5.02%); 3-Brooklyn (3.15%); 4-Guangzhou (2.95%); 5-Shenzhen (2.84%)
All the Cities

Over the past several weeks, unsafe Chinese goods have made world headlines. Countries such as the United States are taking actions to ensure that their citizens are protected by inspecting goods coming from China closely and banning some types completely.

Of course, the Peoples Republic’s exports don’t just go to the developed world. Made in China is everywhere including Africa. The difference is the poorer the country, the cheaper the imports have to be in order to cater to people with little disposable income. There is an optimal point where price and quality meet. After that, the less the price of an item, the worse the quality becomes. And Africa imports lots of very cheap goods from China.

So, what happens when bad products meet the non existent or overwhelmed consumer products safety agencies in African countries? More times than not, nothing. Are unscrupulous Chinese companies exporting counterfeit drugs, poorly made equipments, unsafe food items, and poisonous toys to our continent? Probably. Is there anything African governments can do about this problem? Maybe.

The trouble with most consumer protection agencies in poor countries is they lack funding, qualified human resource, and strong mandate. They are completely inundated with responsibilities and are therefore overstretched. The level of exports to African countries is only going to continue to grow. It is important for each country to evaluate its safety agencies and use available, albeit limited, resources wisely if it isn’t already doing so. Agencies need to refocus their efforts on few key areas related to ingestible products such as medications, baby formula, and other food products sold widely.

A counterfeit malaria medicine that is given to millions of patients has an unimaginably dire consequence to the overall wellbeing of a nation than toys with led paint that are afforded by the very few elite. Although such a wide reaching scenario hasn’t yet happened, it will if no one is watching. Counterfeit drugs are already a big problem within China. Just recently the country’s former Head of the State Food and Drug Administration was put to death for taking bribes from companies that made bad drugs that ended up killing people. It won’t be too long before such products are sprinkled around our continent.

The issue of unprincipled African business men also needs to be examined. China is the new gold rush destination for ambitious entrepreneurs. And most aren’t looking to injure their fellow countrymen. But greed is a universal vice and doesn’t only belong to unethical Chinese companies. African counter parts that import or facilitate the entry of deadly products need to be dealt with properly.

Setting up a system that can tackle new but growing problems like this requires dedication, creativity, and foresight. Very few African governments are truly dedicated to the needs of the people they are meant to serve. Even fewer are creative. None seem to have foresight.

Therefore, it is once again, up to conscientious individual citizens and civil society to guard against and to raise awareness among communities that can potentially be affected.

Source: African Path

CHINA yesterday appointed a senior diplomat as special representative on African affairs with initial focus on the Darfur issue in the North African nation of Sudan.

Liu Guijin, former ambassador to Zimbabwe and South Africa, and former head of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of African Affairs, had been appointed as the special envoy, said Jiang Yu, spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Since the situation in Darfur has attracted world attention, the special representative will focus on the Darfur issue in the initial period,” Jiang told a regular news conference.

Liu, China’s first special envoy on African affairs, is to help enhance China-Africa relations and close contacts with African countries and organizations, Jiang said.

China also planned to send peace keepers to Darfur to participate the second phase project of UN’s Annan plan, according to Jiang.

A team of 275 military engineers will be dispatched to the region in Western Sudan.

The second phase project aims to support African Union’s peace-keeping operation in the region.

China on Sunday called for pushing forward the ongoing political process to resolve the Darfur issue.

Chinese Foreign Ministry official Song Aiguo made the call in a two-day multipartite meeting on Darfur which ended earlier on Sunday in Tripoli, according to news reports reaching Cairo from the Libyan capital.

Speaking at the meeting, Song, who led the Chinese delegation to the meeting, explained China’s stance on the Darfur issue and its efforts in solving the problem, saying all concerned parties should push forward political process and the peace-keeping action in Darfur.

The meeting, called by Libya, was attended by Sudan’s Foreign Minister Lam Akol, special Darfur envoys from the United Nations, the African Union, the United States, the European Union and Britain, and senior officials or ministers from France, China, Canada, Egypt, Norway, Russia, Chad and Eritrea.
Song also called on the international community to provide more assistance to Darfur to improve the humanitarian situation and to help bring peace, stability and development in the Sudanese province.

The multi-partite meeting, which started on Saturday night, reconfirmed on Sunday support for the three-phase support plan agreed by the UN, the AU and the Sudanese government on the deployment of a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force in November last year, also known as the Annan plan as it was put forward by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The first phase, a light support package, was already underway, and the three parties reached an agreement in principle in Addis Ababa on April 9 to inaugurate the second phase of the UN support plan for the AU mission in Darfur, known as “the heavy support phase”.

Source: Shanghai Daily News

HINA Eastern Airlines opened Shanghai’s first flight to Africa over the weekend.

The new route, the Chinese mainland’s second air link to the continent, is expected to boost exchange and trade between China and Africa.

An Airbus 340-300 aircraft, carrying more than 150 passengers and crew, landed at the Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, the largest aviation hub in Africa, on Saturday, completing the maiden flight on the new route.

China Eastern, the country’s third-biggest carrier, will operate two weekly flights from Shanghai to Johannesburg with a stop in Maldives.

Flights will depart from Shanghai, China Eastern’s base, on Tuesdays and Fridays. The planes will take off in Johannesburg, heading for Shanghai, every Wednesday and Saturday.

Flights last about 16 hours.

Before Shanghai, Hong Kong was the only Chinese city that had flights reaching Johannesburg.

China Southern Airlines, the nation’s largest carrier in terms of fleet size, launched the mainland’s first flight to Africa at the end of last year.

China Southern runs three weekly flights from Beijing to Lagos in Nigeria with a stop in Dubai.

The Guangzhou-based airline said it will launch flights from Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, to Nigeria and Angola this year.

The air links come on the heels of a summit between China and nearly 50 African nations in November and President Hu Jintao’s visit to Africa earlier this year.

China pledged US$3 billion in preferential loans to help African countries develop infrastructure, purchase equipment and establish production enterprises.

China also promised to double its assistance to the continent by 2009 in an effort to forge a new strategic partnership and strengthen cooperation in the region.

Source: Shanghai Daily

China said Thursday it remained fully committed to investing in Africa, despite a recent spate of violence against Chinese interests there including the slaughter of 77 people in Ethiopia.

“China supports trans-national trade and investment between China and other countries, including those in Africa. This is our set policy, it will not change,” foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.

Liu had been asked to comment on the impact of recent attacks targeting Chinese nationals and projects abroad, including the killing on Tuesday of 77 people at a China-invested oil project in Ethiopia, including nine Chinese.

Seven other Chinese were also kidnapped in the attack.

Liu admitted the incidents had caught China by surpise and said the government would conduct more in-depth research into the security of its nationals and projects abroad.

“There are some new situations that we never expected to happen,” Liu said.

“During the process there have been some questions on security. The Chinese government will strengthen research on the security situation so that the security of Chinese enterprises engaging in investment, economic and trade cooperation can be further guaranteed in the future.”

The Ethiopia attack followed three separate kidnappings involving 14 Chinese workers in Nigeria this year. Two remain missing.

In Kenya, a Chinese engineer working on a road project was killed in January.

Source: AFP

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-16 08:57 WASHINGTON — A Chinese official called in Washington for developed countries Sunday to increase their aid to support low-income developing countries’ efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”The developed countries should make concrete efforts to raise the Official Development Assistance (ODA) levels to the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product,” said Li Yong, vice minister of Ministry of Finance of China, in a statement at the 75th Development Committee Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“We are glad to note the further progress towards MDGs achieved by the developing countries in 2006, and that poverty incidence declines somewhat in the low-income developing countries,” Li said.

However, progress varies in different regions, he pointed out. The overall population of the poor hardly diminishes, while the Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia remains off the track of most MDGs.

“As the year of 2015 approaches, we are facing the huge challenge of achieving MDGs,” he said.

Li stressed that ODA plays a key role in facilitating developing countries to achieve the MDGs.

In terms of the overall ODA volumes, the huge financing gaps still lie as the binding constraints for development, Li said. While debt reduction has enhanced the developing countries’ capacity for self-development, its direct impact on fiscal revenue is limited.

In terms of the ODA flows, he said, the current tendency of the traditional donors’ withdrawing from the infrastructure and productive sectors should be rectified, and more ODA resources should be shifted to infrastructure development and productive sectors, promoting growth and development in a more direct and effective way.

Li also said that with enhanced economic development and growth, some developing countries are participating more actively in the international cooperation to provide assistance to the extent possible to other developing countries, adding fresh vigor to the “South-South Cooperation.”

“Being developing countries themselves, they help each other and form equal development partnerships,” Li said. “We believe that all countries need to make continued and concerted efforts to promote global development.”