Stepping up to the plate in Ethiopia

 

Unlike depictions in the West, the Ethiopians I met welcomed China's contributions to their country

It was such a pleasant surprise to be given an in-flight information announcement in Mandarin, abroad my flight from Washington DC to Addis Ababa - a welcoming touch for any Chinese traveling to Ethiopia

The taxi driver taking me to Washington Dulles International Airport that morning had already been excited to hear I was flying to the east African country.

She had hoped I would also get the chance to visit her home country, Uganda, just a relatively short flight west, where she assured me they also warmly welcome Chinese.

While poverty and disease still haunt so many parts of the continent, Africa's economy has taken off in dramatic fashion over the past decade, with China playing a major part in that success story. But still, many in the West have criticized the country's role in that.

A former New York Times reporter recently published a book based on what seemed to me as some pretty brief and random conversations with Chinese living and working in Africa. It wasn't exactly complimentary about the Chinese contributions being made - but the writer's rather one-sided views are far from isolated in their level of prejudice against what many suggest is China's plundering of African resources.

However, what I have seen and heard here on the ground over the past few days completely defies much of the blinkered Western narrative currently being written.

Chinese companies, and those who run them, are not only welcomed here - they are lauded as playing a major role in the country's ongoing economic and social development.

I met Ethiopian Yonas Getachew, for instance, who has been involved in contract management for the local branch of ZTE, the Chinese telecom giant.

He tells me he goes to work every day, convinced in the belief that the company's involvement here has been great for his country.

He says he is proud to be a ZTE employee because it has not only helped to improve Ethiopia's previously fragile telecom infrastructure, but also because it has become a model of corporate social responsibility in many areas, such as its donation of thousands of books to the local community.

ZTE provides not just a good living for Getachew and his wife and two children, but it also represents China's dramatic progress in recent times, which is seen by him and his co-workers as a beacon of economic success that many in his country are keen to try to follow.

ZTE employs more than 100 Ethiopians, but the Chinese footwear manufacturer Huajian Group, meanwhile, has even loftier ambitions.

It has 3,200 local employees at a factory that opened in January 2012 in the Eastern Industry Zone, the country's first such facility about an hour's drive from the center of Addis.

Within a decade the company hopes to make Ethiopia a global hub for the shoe industry, supplying the African, European and American markets.

The zone itself is forecast to boast more than 50,000 employees in the future.

As I arrived there, many of Huajian's Ethiopian workers were playing some pre-dinner ping-pong, basketball and soccer in the factory compound.

The company is one of 20 Chinese companies operating in the zone, across various sectors including automobiles, packaging, textiles and garments, steel and cement.

Another 130,000 square meters of space are expected to be built to meet growing industrial demand in a country where power outages are still a daily occurrence, and working infrastructure is far from the norm.

One of the world's poorest nations, Ethiopia faces enormous poverty reduction and development challenges.

With 96 million people, it is the second most populous country in Africa and is considered by many as likely to become a crucial player in linking the African continent to the global supply chain.

The strong Chinese presence in the country undoubtedly shows that entrepreneurs from there, and elsewhere in the world, see massive promise.

Much like the surprise I got onboard my flight from the US, I have been amazed at how many Ethiopians - whether employed by ZTE or Huajian or not - speak Chinese, albeit at a very basic level.

Language is always considered a very good indicator of goodwill between countries.

Many Chinese companies are still pretty new in their operations here, and there may well be many cultural and business differences to be ironed out.

But there is certainly none of the tensions that many in the Western media have been so keen to highlight - only lots of smiles and handshakes so far for this Chinese visitor.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com