Zambians Urged to Wrestle Chinese Business Exploitation

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

While most Zambian people, especially local business owners, have continuously condemned Chinese investors for exploiting the country’s market by selling sub-standard goods and services, as well as monopolizing Zambian business with goods that are supposed to be sold by the indigenous people, The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) thinks the country needs to do its homework to solve the problem.

COMESA representative, James Musonda, said recently at a media workshop on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that the Chinese were not to blame for this scenario, as they were merely taking advantage of the global market to do their business. He maintained that it is up to the Zambians themselves to rise and manufacture the goods, that it is up to the Zambians to take those goods to sell in China, thereby providing competition.

Musonda also stated that Zambia as a country, through the Bureau of Standards, could solve the situation by creating standards for the kinds of goods it desires. He said that, if the country is just going to sit and do nothing about the situation, the Chinese investors would take advantage of the gaps and continue providing the so called sub-standard services and goods.

“The Bureau of Standards should set the standards of the kinds of goods we want. They have developed a lot of standards, but unfortunately, most standards are voluntary—a manufacturer chooses to either adhere or not,” said Musonda.

Zambians are amongst other African countries that have expressed disgust at the trend of Chinese investors selling goods that have been described to be of pathetic quality, such as clothes that wear out shortly after being purchased, and electric appliances that get beggared in less than a month, among others.

The Chinese have also been accused of stifling the Zambian and African markets by selling goods that are very local, some as small as a toothpick, which they sell almost 10 times cheaper than those sold by the locals, and in the long run, affecting the local businesses.

Despite all these complaints, the Chinese businesses are mushrooming and the Chinese people keep flowing into both the country and continent in large numbers, while the government seems to be giving a deaf ear to the people’s cries.