Uganda asks China to buy African agricultural products to cut trade deficit
- President Yoweri Museveni tells Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi trade between African nations is unsustainable
- China is the continent’s largest trading partner and lender, but imports mostly its oil and minerals
He said Africa had a surplus of agricultural products despite exporting to Europe and the US, partly because trade between African countries remained low.
“Africa’s 54 countries have come together through market integration in blocs such as Comesa [Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa] that are not sustainable,” Museveni said. “The surplus of production needs another intercontinental market and an external market like China to come in.”
China is Africa’s largest trading partner, having surpassed the US in 2009. Africa’s trade with China was worth US$204 billion last year, according to figures from China’s Ministry of Commerce.
China is also the continent’s largest lender, having advanced more than US$143 billion between 2000 and 2017 to African countries for building motorways, power dams and railways, according to figures from the China Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
Museveni said China was interested in importing some aquatic products from Uganda, such as the Nile perch fish, which he said had high demand globally.
China pledges another US$60b to Africa as leaders meet in Beijing
With China exporting far more to the continent than it imports from it, African nations are aiming to restructure the trading relationship to narrow their trade deficit by working out what Chinese consumers want and how to get it to them.
China’s imports of African goods are dominated by natural resources such as crude oil, copper, cobalt, iron ore, diamonds, gold and titanium, which it buys to meet its industrial and manufacturing needs. In return, Africa imports machinery, electronics and manufactured consumer goods.
China’s agricultural trade with Africa increased from US$650 million in 2000 to US$6.92 billion in 2018, Chinese Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said this month. Han said he hoped that the figure would reach US$10 billion in the next decade.
Museveni said in the meeting with Yang that Beijing had “supported the continent’s prosperity through trade”, and that the memorandum of understanding he had signed last year with Chinese President Xi Jinping had “intensified the relationship” between their countries.
A pipeline being constructed to Tanzania, to connect Uganda’s oil fields to the Indian Ocean, is being funded partly by Chinese investment, along with new industrial parks.
Yang said China would work with Uganda to implement the agreements reached by their respective heads of state and the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
Beijing set to pledge further billions to Africa despite lending fears
After Uganda, Yang will continue his African tour by visiting Congo-Brazzaville. The tiny oil-dependent central African nation recently fell into debt distress when global oil prices dropped, forcing Beijing to restructure its loans to unlock a bailout by the International Monetary Fund.
Xi denies China is spending money on African ‘vanity projects’
Yang will then visit the West African nation of Senegal, where Beijing is funding large infrastructure projects.
Several other leading Chinese diplomats have made trips to Africa this year, including Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who visited South Africa in October. Last week, Ji Bingxuan, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress – the permanent body of China’s legislature – led a group of officials visiting Congo-Brazzaville.
