Ramaphosa says China visit boosted prospects for trade and reduction in export-import imbalance

President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during a high-level meeting on industrialisation and agricultural modernisation, on the sidelines of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, China, on 5 September 2024. (Photo: Andy Wong / Pool / EPA-EFE)

By Peter Fabricius

6 Sep 2024

Following his visit to the People’s Republic of China, the president also welcomed the acceptance by all his GNU partners of a one-China policy

President Cyril Ramaphosa says he was able to boost the prospects of more balanced trade with China on what he called a “hugely successful” state visit to that country this week.

He said many of the eight agreements which SA and China signed on the trip are aimed at increasing and improving trade with China, making it more balanced, including by opening the Chinese market. He said China is SA’s largest trade partner, but there is currently a large imbalance, mostly because SA mainly exports raw materials to China and imports mostly manufactured goods.

Read more: SA and China upgrade relations — is it more than mere rhetoric?

Ramaphosa in China boost-trade President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during a high-level meeting on industrialisation and agricultural modernisation, on the sidelines of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, China, on 5 September 2024. (Photo: Andy Wong / Pool / EPA-EFE)

Ramaphosa highlighted an agreement on beef as one measure that will boost SA’s exports. He said China currently bans all SA beef imports if disease such as foot-and-mouth breaks out anywhere in SA. Under the deal signed this week, China agreed that in future it will block beef imports from only the region in South Africa where the disease occurred.

The agreement will increase beef exports to China “and we should see increased production in South Africa”.

Ramaphosa said Pretoria has also signed agreements to enable more manufactured goods from SA to be exported to China.

Other agreements will increase cooperation with China in science, technology and innovation and harness China’s help in boosting SA’s energy security.

Ramaphosa noted that he had also visited Beijing to attend the three-yearly Forum for China-Africa Cooperation, a summit between China and all the African countries which recognise China and not Taiwan. The only African state that doesn’t is Eswatini, which maintains relations with Taiwan.

At the summit, President Xi Jinping pledged to increase China’s aid, with funding of nearly $51-billion over three years, backing for more infrastructure projects and the creation of at least 1 million jobs.

China has been widely criticised for getting Africa into debt traps by lending countries large amounts of money for infrastructure projects which they can’t afford.

But Ramaphosa said he did not think that China lent money with the aim of leading recipients into debt traps. He said Xi had described the new funding as investments, probably through Chinese state-owned enterprises. Each African country must structure these investments in a that benefits them, Ramaphosa said

“So I am very positively disposed to the amount of money that President Xi announced today; I think it is going to be a great boon to the African continent .”

He added that he didn’t agree that China’s relationship with Africa was “oppressive” or “neo-colonial … It should be seen as a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Ramaphosa hailed as another achievement of his trip that he was able to reassure Xi that the Government of National Unity (GNU) will not deviate from the one-China policy which the SA government had been following.

He said he informed Xi that even the leader of one of the other parties in the GNU “who initially was not so well disposed to one-China policy, having visited China for the very first time and for the very first time as one of my ministers, publicly said that he now subscribes and embraces a one China policy.

“And President Xi Jinping was rather pleased with that.”

Ramaphosa did not name the minister but was clearly referring to DA leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, who told Bloomberg News while he was in China that he didn’t think the GNU would change SA’s China policy, and that “the South African government subscribes to the one-China policy”.

Ramaphosa also met Chinese businesses, some of which already have investments in SA, to showcase the investment opportunities in SA. He said he explained how the government is opening the SA market and assured them it is addressing visa bottlenecks, acknowledging that the visa regime “has been a bit restrictive, in that many Chinese business people and tourists have had to wait for too long to get visas to come to South Africa”.

He said he invited the companies to the investment conference SA will be holding.

Ramaphosa said a huge delegation of SA business people accompanied him to China, and they “are really overjoyed with what they see as a very close relationship between China and South Africa”.

Many were invested in China and “and they have seen their investments growing by leaps and bounds”.

They had wanted to gauge whether the relationship would be enhanced under the “seventh administration”. He said the sight of the ministers from various parties in his delegation working together was a “confidence-booster” and had given them that assurance.

He said he is confident that China will keep its promise to make more manufacturing and job-creating investments in South Africa

In particular, with its well-developed automotive industry, South Africa would be able to attract Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. He said he had spoken to the company BYD, which showed a great interest in investing in South Africa. Renewable energy companies had already started investing in SA and others had shown an interest in doing so, he said.

Ramaphosa added that SA will also draw from China’s considerable experience in reforming its energy sector and state-owned enterprises more generally. DM

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