Speaking at the just ended Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), China’s President Xi Jinping said China will not stop its efforts to expand opening up and reform, nor will it close doors to the outside world.

The President invited countries around the world to be a larger part of China’s economy and share benefits from its reform, opening up and development. China has thus promised to ‘foster a more relaxed and orderly environment for local and international entrepreneurs to make investment and start business.’

In taking advantage of this open invitation, Kobus van der Wath, the Founder and Group Managing Director of Axis Group International and The Beijing Axis has advice on how African countries can take advantage of China’s economy, as China is the largest economy in Asia Pacific, which is playing a critical role in the region’s ongoing transformation.

Kobus is a South African who has been living in Asia for 20 years, in these two decades, he says he rarely found commodities from South Africa, let alone Southern Africa and the rest of Africa in Beijing. That said, Africa cannot afford to continue living on the side-lines of China’s economy but should be an active investor and beneficiary. In 2016 alone, a UN Comtrade; The Beijing Axis Analysis report notes that China was the second largest importer globally after the USA. China’s imports’ worth was equivalent to 13% of its GDP. The Asian economy imports a wide range of product –machinery, electrical equipment, mineral and metal products dominate.

South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the US and Germany are usually China’s top sources of imports, accounting for about 57% of China’s total imports. The only African country that makes the list is South Africa.

After two decades of Asia, Kobus is convinced that Southern Africa has something that China wants. Hot sectors that Southern Africa can import to China Kobus highlights as being food; nutrition, agri-processing, luxury; premium for discerning consumers, wider consumer market; wallet-size increase, new consumerism, technology; best practice know-how  and services among others.

To succeed, Kobus says Africans should be culturally astute, they should invest in partnerships, should become insiders, should be flexible and be rigorous analytics. He said due diligence is key if African countries will benefit from China’s economy. Challenges he foresees threatening African investors are limited budgets, lack of an integrated approach, limited scale and scope and the African people’s perceptions of China.

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