Africa gets big boost in Shanghai

The glittering towers of the Pudong New Area have long been China's unequivocal message to the world that it is in the full throes of modernization. Now, the Shanghai district that has been transformed as the country has opened up is playing host to a huge project that promises to revolutionize the way China does business with Africa.

Behind it all is a man from Zhejiang province who says he went to West Africa 14 years ago when he was 24 with $700 in his pocket, and subsequently built a multimillion-dollar business empire that has dealings with many African countries.

He Liehui's project is the Africa Center, a complex of nine buildings covering 130,000 square meters in Jinqiao Export Processing Zone, 15 kilometers east of the Oriental Pearl Tower.

His Touchroad International Holdings Group, which has interests in finance, mining, real estate, tourism and trading, says it is pouring 1 billion yuan ($163 million) into the Africa Center. He says that by the end of the year the bulk of African countries, about 40 out of 56 countries and regions, are expected to open offices in the Africa Center, which is close to about 70 Fortune 500 companies.

The aim is to put Africa and its businesses in closer contact with Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region, including the teeming economies of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, He says.

The GDP of the Yangtze River Delta region last year was worth about 10 trillion yuan, 18 percent of the national figure, Wuxi Statistics Bureau says, and in the same period China's investment in Africa rose by more than a third, the country's Ministry of Commerce says.

"Shanghai is an important economic bridgehead for China, and the Yangtze River Delta is an incredibly dynamic region," He says.

"Many companies are looking for opportunities in Africa, and African countries also attach great importance to this area."

By the end of August, companies in Shanghai had invested about $360 million in 27 African countries and set up 83 companies in the continent, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce says.

Last year, Zhejiang province's trade with Africa was worth about 139 billion yuan, 22.6 percent more than the previous year, and by the end of April this year more than 460 companies from the province had invested a total of more than $1.4 billion in Africa, the province's Department of Commerce says.

The 40 African governments that have signed a memorandum of understanding with Touchroad to set up consulates or representative offices in the Africa Center would provide services and information to attract investors and visitors from China's most economically dynamic regions. In addition, dozens of private companies plan to set up offices there.

The center would be the only one-stop service shop in the country serving as an economic and cultural exchange center between China and Africa, He says. Much of its attraction is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who had been forced to beat a path to Beijing on business or tourism fact-finding missions, or merely to apply for visas, will be saved the hassle.

Frederick Shava, Zimbabwe's ambassador to China, says: "China is very big, and people all across the country need to go to our Beijing office for visas, which means a lot of travel."

Another primary reason for Zimbabwe's opening an office in the Africa Center is that a great deal of Chinese investment in the country comes from Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu province, Shava says.