China could help African cotton to become competitive
Posted on 01/13/2012 9:13:49 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A recent Chinese-African cotton agreement could usher in a new era for the African cotton industry -- but not in the short-term, say industry experts.
Under the agreement, signed in December with four key cotton-producing African countries -- Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso (known as the C4) - China stated it would provide machinery, expertise and materials in a bid to increase and improve the quality of local production.
At the signing ceremony in Geneva, Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming suggested this was a step towards outsourcing production to Africa. "In [the] longer term, we may relocate some of the textile and apparel industry into Africa," he said.
Chen added this agreement represented China's support of the "aid-for-trade" exchange programme, promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) for its stagnant Doha Development Agenda trade negotiations and that "hopefully cotton farmers in C4 will benefit from this agreement in three years".
Yet experts remain unconvinced over the immediate benefits for C4; its effects on the Chinese cotton industry; and on its relevance to Doha.
"Chinese companies prefer buying cotton from the US because of its good quality and lower price, especially with the appreciation of the Chinese currency [the] yuan," said Wang Qianjin, analyst at Shanghai World Dimension Information, a consultant firm serving the domestic textile industry.
In November, according to China customs (the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China), China bought 32,000 tonnes of cotton from the US, up 376.7% from October.
From January to November 2011, China bought 2.57m tonnes of overseas cotton, up 8.3% year-on-year. The US and India were the top two suppliers.
By contrast, African cotton is more expensive than its Indian counterpart and carries no guarantee of quality...
(Excerpt) Read more at just-style.com ...
China could help African cotton to become competitive
Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso (known as the C4)
China will eventually take over a good chunk of Africa for resources, they thought European colonialism was bad, guess again.
IT was Western, mostly American NGO charities that destroyed Africa’s textile industries. CHinese traders just finished them off in the last decade.
You send countless container loads of used donated clothing from the West to Africa and local African textile factories close down.
That's only the producers who make stuff for African markets. The exporters shouldn't be affected.
Don’t forget there won’t be much cotton from drought-stricken Texas.
Whether European colonialism was a good or bad thing, I'll leave up to the historians. Though, most who do think it was a good thing, tend to have a Eurocentric view of the world.
Whatever the perspective, one thing is clear, European colonialism of Africa resulted in Europe taking administrative and political control of the African continent. China's growing trade with Africa have no such element. The African countries are dealing with China as sovereign countries, where the Africans are in charge of their own country.
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