Interview: China has bigger role to play in SADC's quest for industrialization: SADC official

HARARE, July 31 (Xinhua) -- China has a significant role to play in driving industrialization in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, a senior official from the regional bloc has said.

In an interview with Xinhua Tuesday on the sidelines of the 7th SADC Industrialization Week underway in Zimbabwe's capital of Harare, the SADC Secretariat's senior program officer for industrialization and competitiveness Johansein Rutaihwa said, "China has a bigger role to play when it comes to SADC's industrialization, and one of the roles it can play is in terms of the market and provision of inputs that can go into the manufacturing plants in the region."

According to Rutaihwa, China has a large population that can provide a reliable market for products from the SADC region. He noted that the regional economic grouping is currently implementing various strategies and programs to help small and medium enterprises in the region to manufacture higher quality goods, as not many products from the region can meet global standards.

China could also provide funding for the establishment of manufacturing plants in the region, Rutaihwa said, adding that the region can tap into the potential financing opportunities provided by China to promote industrialization.

"We need to use the funds to construct manufacturing plants where we can employ people and produce goods that can be consumed within the region and exported as well," he added.

China, he said, also has a crucial role to play in providing technical know-how by sending its experts to the special economic zones in member states for certain periods, imparting knowledge to the local workforce.

He said that the skills shortage for industrialization in SADC is so severe that sometimes it becomes cheaper to employ skilled manpower from China and other foreign countries.

"We understand that for us to industrialize, we need to have reliable skills in our people, and China has got those skills and the technology to help us," Rutaihwa said.

He said the region will strongly champion the need for member states to specialize in one segment of the regional manufacturing value chains during the upcoming 44th Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government scheduled for Aug. 17 in Zimbabwe.

"We want to ensure that member states specialize in areas where they have a competitive advantage in our pursuit of regional manufacturing value chains, so that we can benefit from regional projects that can then be expanded to other member states for the benefit of the whole region," he said.

The week-long SADC Industrialization Week, one of the largest public-private engagement platforms dedicated to industrialization and fostering intra-African trade and investment, is being hosted by the SADC Secretariat, in collaboration with the government of Zimbabwe, the SADC Business Council, and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.