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Secretary General of COMESA Visits China .

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa ( COMESA 1 ) has named China as a new lucrative destination for its expansion programmes in enhancing trade and attracting investment.

COMESA Secretary General Mr Erastus Mwencha revealed that the regional bloc is now looking at China to partner with COMESA in areas of trade, investment and development.

Mr Mwencha said China ’s fast growing economy and improved trade can be of maximum benefit to COMESA which has also recorded a success in intra-regional trade.

COMESA has noted that most of Asia in particular China, India and South Korea have emerged as strong players in the global economy with trade between Asia and Africa increasing at more than 10% per annum.

The COMESA Secretary General added that the region will however exercise caution when negotiating for trade deals so as not to disadvantage the Member States.

Mr Mwencha was speaking in an interview with the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) in Harare before leaving on a one-week mission to China to seek cooperation in the following areas of agriculture, infrastructure, regional industrialisation and trade.

COMESA would also like China to assist with the construction of the new headquarters for the COMESA Secretariat to be based in a prime business area of Lusaka , which is less noisy and congested than town.

Despite having no particular cooperation programmes in progress with the Chinese government, the COMESA Secretariat maintains cordial cooperation with China through the Embassy in Lusaka and indirectly through COMESA Institutions like the ATI and the PTA-Bank where China is the only non-African shareholder in the bank.

China has historical ties with Africa in general dating back to the struggle for independence from colonialism while Chinese companies and businesses are involved in general trading, agriculture, mining, energy, transport & telecommunications and public works projects in the COMESA region.

Trade statistics indicate incremental growth of exports from COMESA to China growing from US$ 42 million in 1998 to about US$ 822 million in 2002.

But even more important, China has gone through similar development processes and encountered similar transformation challenges like Africa , which makes it amenable for our reference.

1 COMESA is the largest African Economic grouping, with a Membership of 19 Countries , 11 of these are already operating a Free Trade Area launched in October 2000, while the rest trade on preferential terms, it is already working on the creation of a customs union.