India seizes African moment

Africa's enchantment with China may have peaked and that is good news for India.

In the past decade, the subcontinent has trailed its Asian rival in the great scramble for Africa's mineral wealth.

About US$6 in trade flows between Africa and China for every $1 that is spent between the continent and India. The Chinese have jostled aside the EU and US as Africa's largest trade partner and have a presence in almost every one of the 54 countries that make up the continent.

China's deep pockets and willingness to do business with some of the less reputable regimes has given it an edge over competitors.

Companies from the dragon economy have also been significantly less averse to risk than western companies, plunging into Angola, Sierra Leone and the Congo even as the smell of gunpowder still hung in the air. By the time the Americans and British showed up, the Chinese had snapped up the best contracts.

Although wooing the Chinese continues, the signs are that the relationship has cooled. Until now, China's approach has been to use the lure of large projects to secure minerals. Dams, railways and stadiums have sprung up from Angola to Guinea. But as the economic downturn continues to bite, these countries are starting to realise Beijing is actually offering loans, with their commodities as collateral. To illustrate that changing climate, Beijing has announced it will "temporarily" scale back investments in response to slowing economic conditions.

"We will retain our existing investments in Africa and further expand to other industries as time goes by," says Zhong Manying, the head of the Chinese commerce ministry's west Asia and Africa department.

Reports of attacks on Chinese nationals in South Africa this month and the recent shooting of protesting labourers in a Chinese-backed company in Zambia are indications of the increasingly strained relationship.

In the past few years, countries have seen their fledgling industrial base wiped out by the wave of Chinese imports. South Africa's once robust textile industry is on its knees, in spite of heavy tariffs imposed on imports. Angola and Libya have, in the past few years, blocked the sale of oil assets to China in retaliation.

It would be premature to say China's "dragon safari" is at an end. It is now the continent's third-largest trading partner after the US and France. But as Africans take a more realistic view of China's intentions and see the limits of the relationship, it opens up the way for the other Asian giant: India.

Investments from the subcontinent in Africa trail behind China's, partly because they are fuelled by private-sector companies that do not enjoy limitless state funding. As a result, they are more cautious and unlikely to invest in nations where security is a concern.

But like the Chinese, Indian businessmen have their eyes on the $1.4 trillion (Dh5.14tn) McKinsey & Company reckons Africa will spend annually by 2020.

India also has historic ties with Africa and shares English as a common second language. The Zambian shooting incident was at least partly blamed on the failure of the Chinese overseers to understand what protesting workers were angry about. Eastern and southern Africa have Indian communities with legacies that go back more than a century. Many of their descendants are now in prominent business and political positions. The South African finance minister, Pravin Gordhan is of Indian origin.

To be sure, India has been slow to capitalise on these advantages. And its woeful efforts in hosting the Commonwealth Games last year did not go unnoticed with many African diplomats who had attended the spectacular Beijing Olympics a couple of years before.

Still, Indian and African trade is approaching $20 billion a year, up from $1bn a decade ago. Much of this is in telecommunications. Bharti Airtel, the Indian mobile telecoms provider, is now in at least 16 countries on the continent and looking at further expansion. Bharti's $9bn for the African mobile assets of Kuwait's Zain was one of the continent's largest acquisition deals.

"There will be many more acquisitions made by Indian companies in the consumer space in the coming months," says a senior banker with an Indian investment bank that recently advised one of its country's companies on an acquisitions deal in Africa.

"We can expect some mid-sized acquisitions in early 2011."

India has 30,000 peacekeeping troops in various African hotspots. It is also one of the largest providers of cheap generic drugs, especially Aids-preventative medicine.

China, of course, is not about to let India move in without a fight. Beijing surprised many in December by inviting South Africa to join the Bric club of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Although it is the continent's economic powerhouse, South Africa has an economy significantly smaller than, say, South Korea.

The invitation was probably less to do with economics than politics. By pulling Pretoria closer into its web, Beijing was effectively putting India on notice that it was not about to let competition from New Delhi diminish its vast influence in Africa.