City of opportunities

No one seems to know exactly how many there are, but there is no doubt that the Africans of Guangzhou are making their mark

When Abdullahi Tukur Bawa finished high school in northern Nigeria seven years ago, he was keen on going to Britain or the United States to pursue his studies. But his parents gave that idea short shrift. For them there was only one country he could possibly go to: China.

That was because Bawa's father used to travel to the country on business in the 1990s and saw it as a land of growing opportunities, particularly for anyone wanting to stake out a career path.

Bawa says that once he started studying at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, he realized how wise his parents' guidance had been. However, it was only several years later, when he went to Guangzhou to take up an internship, that the full dimensions of China's economic might became clear to him, he says.

"Beijing and Guangzhou are two different places for Africans," says Bawa, 34, from the city of Katsina, northern Nigeria. "It's more relaxing to live in Beijing as an African, but in Guangzhou there is this inexplicable buzz in the air when you go out."

Guangzhou means business opportunities for Africans, and while they have played an increasingly greater role in business with China they have also helped the two peoples better understand one another. But, for all the joys and benefits that Africans experience while living in Guangzhou, problems remain piquant.

Coming up with a reliable figure on how many Africans live in China is difficult because different groups define the community in different ways based on different needs, says Li Zhigang, professor of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of the School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

There are conflicting figures because government, media and researchers come up with their own, each of which seems to be met with a lot of skepticism from some quarter or other. The Chinese government says about 15,000 Africans were in Guangzhou in September, but that only 4,096 were long-term residents. But some international media reckon 300,000 to 500,000 Africans live in the city, which Li says is a gross exaggeration.

"According to research we did in 2007, about 20,000 Africans were living in the city, and since then the number has fallen slightly."

The high degree of mobility in the group and the fact that many come from other parts of China and do not enter through Guangzhou airport contribute to the difficulty in producing a reliable figure, he says.

"But for urban planners and the city government, both the number of long-term residents and short-term visitors should be collected so policy can properly be made. Having these two figures publicly available would also greatly help locals look at their community in a more positive way."

One certain thing is that the African diaspora in Guangzhou is the largest in East Asia, he says.

But why Guangzhou?

Albert Rugaba, chief representative of the Rwanda Development Board, whose China head office is in Shenzhen, a 40-minute train ride away, says Guangzhou has become renowned among African businesses as the first stop in China for buying a huge range of products, including construction materials, machinery and household items.

In addition, it is easily accessible by air because many airlines fly between the city and Africa, he says. Many African companies also rely on businesses in Guangzhou to service their orders, from sourcing to having the goods delivered in the continent.

"The presence of Africans in Guangzhou plays a big role in bringing buyers to China from the continent, contributing to the vibrant China-Africa trade relationship," Rugaba says.

The Rwanda Development Board is a government agency with a private-sector mindset that draws together government agencies responsible for investment under one roof.

This includes key agencies responsible for business registration, investment promotion, environmental assessment, privatization and specialist agencies that support the priority areas of information, communications and technology, and tourism as well as small and medium-sized enterprises and human capacity development in the private sector.

"The idea of setting up our headquarters in South China was to be close to private business, being located at the heart of the manufacturing and an economic hub," Rugaba says.

It was also important to engage with Chinese companies, especially in information, communications and technology, which were finding their feet when the office was set up 10 years ago, he says.

Rwanda's embassy in Beijing takes care of the political side of the relationship with China, while most of the countries' commercial exchanges are done with Guangdong province.

However, Rugaba says that while the country-to-country relationships between China and Africa are strong, dealings at a personal level are not quite as advanced. That gives Africans in Guangzhou a splendid opportunity to act as goodwill ambassadors, he says.

"Africans play a big role in introducing China to those of our citizens unfamiliar with it, and this is why Guangzhou has become such a strong magnet for business all over Africa. People back home know they will have a fellow African who will show them around and help them find the right supplier, and help them supervise the sourcing, logistics and quality control."

Michaela Pelican, assistant professor of the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Cologne, Germany, says traditionally Africans have tended to migrate from South to North, but when many European countries changed their immigration policies in the late 1990s, African businesspeople started to look to the geopolitical South for opportunities.

Pelican, who has studied the African community in Dubai, says many Africans in Guangzhou and Dubai have similar aims and backgrounds, being interested in business and trade, and hoping to make a contribution to the economies of their own countries.

Apart from bringing products to Africa, knowledge transfer is taking place by African communities in Guangzhou as they bring back management, business opportunities and of course new skills and technologies they see there, she says.

"And remittances and investment are a significant part of their impact on this relationship, too, especially those who have been there for a long time and have brought back real investment."

Given Guangzhou is now well known to many African traders, it is becoming increasingly difficult for newcomers to break into the market because of the stiff competition, Pelican says.

"In this particular context, they are not alone here. Apart from competitors from Africa, they are also confronted directly with the competition from Chinese businesses that can export their products to Africa, too. This is different from the Dubai case, where only international traders are in the market competition.

"One would assume Africans know African markets better than Chinese do, but I am unsure about this, as indicators have shown that many Chinese businesspeople living in Africa are also running a very good business."

Li of Sun Yat-sen University says some media have depicted Guangzhou as a city full of African traders whose presence promotes crime, and such views stoke misunderstanding and mistrust in locals who know little directly about these fellow city dwellers.

"In fact criminality among Africans in Guangzhou is extremely low, and the numbers of those who are there illegally is a lot lower than is reported," Li says.

"However, these baseless reports have fazed Guangzhou's government, so tightened policies over this group were almost inevitable."

These changes have upset the balance between controls on the immigrant community and the community's push for more rights. This balance has been a long-evolving process that has been good for the community and good as policy, Li says.

The tighter rules have made it more expensive for African businesspeople to operate in China, and risk driving them to other markets, says Zhong Chunhua, 34, who has provided consultancy and logistics services to African clients in Guangzhou for more than 10 years.

"Because the demand from Africa and supply from China match perfectly, this commercial tie has developed quite well. But for many who have a smaller financial capacity, unfamiliarity with China's tightened immigration policies may increase the risks of being deported or fined. For instance, anyone who fails to register at a police station shortly after arriving is liable for a fine of 2,000 yuan ($323)."

Zhong says most deals in China are settled in renminbi, so Africans are also confronted with a serious challenge as the US dollar and the currencies of their own countries have depreciated against the renminbi over time. That has resulted in a heavy burden for nearly all African businesses in the past few years, particularly because the US dollar has depreciated 25 percent against the renminbi in the past 10 years.

"So some of my clients had to think about some other markets such as Thailand, India, Turkey or the Philippines, although most of the products in those places are still made in China," Zhong says, adding that a stable African population in Guangzhou can only strengthen China-African ties.

Another false stereotype that Chinese in Guangzhou have of Africans is that they are poor, echoing a long-held stereotype of Africa, Pelican says.

In fact, many African entrepreneurs in Guangzhou are from rich families, are highly educated and have access to a lot of wealth in their home countries, so they can strongly influence China-Africa ties and economic growth for both sides, she says. The internship that Bawa from Nigeria is doing is at a trading and shipping company whose owner is influential among Nigerians in the city.

Guangzhou will remain important to Africa and its traders for a long time, but eventually it may play a different economic role, Bawa says.

"Coming to Guangzhou to buy finished products isn't all that smart. It's better to come and find investors to take back investment and build up manufacturing factories at home. A lot of traders are still pouring in, but few have succeeded in going back to our own countries and setting up factories to make bags or shoes, which is more sustainable to our development."

lilianxing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/01/2015 page1)