China’s BRI and a formidable AfCFTA in the face of Globalisation

by Admin (Posted on August 16, 2023)

By Musanjufu Benjamin Kavubu

After many years of planning, discussion and negotiations on the 1^st day of 2021, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) came into existence. Now the basis for a free trade area is free movement of people and free movement of goods and commodities across countries’ borders. This whole process revolves around transportation. There is talk that “it’s easier to fly to France than fly directly to West Africa from East Africa” because there is barely any infrastructure to support intra African travels.

The Trans African highway system can easily come off as a myth if you looked at the figures for Intra-African trade.  For example, in East Africa, Kenya Exports about $ 1 billion worth of goods to the United States and $ 500 million to EU but it only exports $ 69 million to Ethiopia who they share a land border with. Of course, we can’t water down the impact of tariffs amongst African countries but there is need for ground infrastructure to foster an African free trade area.

We are yet to see the benefits of AfCFTA but in the last 10 years, there is something that has sprang up and it’s a remarkable vehicle for the African Free trade area. In September 2013 China’s President Xi Jinping put in place his grand political-economic project and in it came the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and at the moment it links about 155 countries and 32 International organisations. AfCFTA on paper brings together 55 markets of 1.2 billion people with a total GDP OF $ 2 trillion. The BRI project at the moment has 52 African countries out of its total 155 worldwide.

A close look at the BRI, one will understand how much China is subconsciously putting in an African Free trade area that benefits the European Union more since Exports to Africa stand at 36% against China’s 9%, EU imports from Africa including uranium for their weapons and energy are at 33% against China’s 5% but its China that is blamed to over invest in Africa’s infrastructure. One would say China uses its Silk Road history to link to Europe and maximise the African supply chain but then that would fit the definitions of Globalization which is the future.

In China’s bid to facilitate free movement of goods and services Beijing set up $ 3.3 billion in the Nador Med West industrial port in Algeria and it’s said that route is the North African link to West Africa through the Trans-Saharan Highway. In West Africa we have witnessed China set its foot on projects like the Abuja-Kaduna railway line that was done by China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) as Africa’s giant embarks on setting up a standard gauge across the country. In 2023, we saw China sign a deal that would see oil pipeline in Niger and set up an industrial park.

The El Hamdania Central Port is one of the largest in Africa and its part of the BRI in Algeria on top of it China has done a 750 mile East-West road that connects Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. At the peak of the resent Ethiopian civil war, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway was a source of contest but no one ever mentioned that it was a BRI by-product that links Landlocked Ethiopia to the Sea and the Ethiopia-Djibouti Water Pipeline all financed by EXIM Bank.

 

There is a 10,228 KM road that starts from the many ports of Egypt and ends in Cape Town. The great Trans African Highway. This route is full of Chinese projects that are bettering transportation and industrial infrastructure. It’s said Egypt could be the most important part of the BRI with projects like the Chinese Industrial zone in the Gulf of Suez, the electric train system for Egypt’s new capital. Of course, geopolitically, Egypt has always been a prize for world powers and China is not being left behind. Apart from the African Cup of Nations there, nothing that has made Egypt more active in African affairs like the AfCFTA.

Down The great Trans African Highway in Sudan, China has been part of the rehabilitation of railway lines by the Chines Company CRRC Ziyang. China is at the forefront of the oil industry in Sudan and it has promised to have a nuclear power station be set up in future.

Along the great Trans African Highway is the East African Community and the BRI has seen the development of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway and also Kenya’s biggest infrastructure project since Independence that spans 470 km in 4 hours and half, boosting the GDP by 1.5% and creating about 40,000 jobs for Kenyans. In Tanzania, the BRI has put in place a 2,561 km line that links Dar es Salaam to Mwanza on Lake Victoria and will further go to Burundi, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. In Uganda, there is the Entebbe-Kampala Expressway that connects Uganda to the world in a shortened time.

The BRI could be China’s plan to speed up trade with Africa but at the end of the day chokepoints are eliminated they in turn benefit the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) since there is this new mix of rail, road and water transport infrastructure being put in place. As China tries to reach more so called less developed countries, Africa is being opened up for Intra-African trade. Then AfCFTA will be able to lift 30 million African from poverty in no time.

Musanjufu Benjamin Kavubu is a Junior Research Fellow at Sino-Uganda Research Centre.

 

 

 

 

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