Despite U.S. suspicion, Germany backs China's bid to lead global infrastructure revolution: expert
○ Chinese enterprises have been encouraged by Germany's advocacy for Sino-German cooperation in third-country markets during the G20 Hamburg Summit
○ The collaboration between China and Germany is a powerful combination that can give full play to their respective advantages
○ Business insiders say it is a golden opportunity for countries to join hands and reshape the international industry chain
Helen Hai felt encouraged when she heard German Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks during the G20 Hamburg Summit that there's a big potential for China and Germany to cooperate in third-country markets, especially in Africa.
Hai, CEO of the Made in Africa initiative and adviser to the governments of Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Senegal on investment promotion and industrialization, has been advancing the idea of trilateral cooperation among China, Europe and Africa since 2013.
"It is inevitable for China, Germany and Africa to finally resort to collaboration to address some of their current challenges," Hai told the Global Times.
To her, the collaboration will kill three birds with one stone - help Africa get out of poverty and achieve stability, meet the demands of economic transformation and industrial upgrade of China, and help resolve the refugee crisis in Germany.
In May, top commerce officers from the two countries inaugurated the Sino-German Center for Sustainable Development in Beijing. The center aims to promote bilateral economic cooperation in African countries, leveraging China's rich experience of infrastructure investment in Africa and German know-how in the field of vocational training, environment and energy technology.
"China and Germany are cooperating in third-country markets such as Rwanda and Angola," Merkel told reporters during the closing media briefing of the summit. "Though the cooperation is still at a nascent stage, it has great potential."
Major player
According to a recent report by McKinsey Africa, China's engagement with Africa has enjoyed an unparalleled development in the past decade, with trade growing at around 20 percent annually and 10,000 Chinese firms operating in Africa, said a Deutsche Welle report in late June.
Chinese enterprises made more than $750 million of non-financial direct investment in African countries in the first quarter of 2017, up 64 percent year-on-year, Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson Sun Jiwei said in May, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Matthew Tsamenyi, executive director of the Africa program at the China Europe International Business School, believes that although Europe and the U.S. have over the past decades been the most influential partners in Africa in terms of trade, investment and aid, China has established a huge presence on the scene as an equally influential player.
"Over the past two decades, China has surpassed a number of Western countries to become a major player on the continent," Tsamenyi told the Global Times.
He added that China has provided a lot of funding to infrastructure projects in Africa, which forms the foundation for the continent's industrialization and economic development.
China has been the largest investor in African infrastructure for years. According to Infrastructure Financing Trends in Africa 2015, the latest annual report released by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa, the total funding for African infrastructure reached $83.5 billion in 2015, of which $20.9 billion came from China.
"The biggest gain for Africa in all of this is that besides the Western powers, it now has a powerful alternative market and collaborator and thus a bigger bargaining power during trade and other development negotiations," said Tsamenyi.
Powerful combination
At its Hangzhou summit in 2016, the G20 announced the Initiative on Supporting Industrialization in Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the first of its kind. As the host of the summit, China encouraged the world's biggest economies to support the industrialization of Africa, and endorse it as the solution for development challenges in the region.
The Hamburg summit continued the G20's engagement with Africa. The agenda focused on the Compact with Africa initiative, which is aimed at promoting private sector investment, supporting infrastructure development and achieving greater employment in Africa.
