The Centre for Africana Studies of the Africana University College of Communications (AUCC) has held the second in the series of Africana lectures at its Discovery House Campus at Adabraka, Accra. The Lectures aim to provide AUCC students and the general public with knowledge that will enhance their ability to contribute to the renaissance of Africa.

The speaker for this second lecture was Prof. Jean-Germain Gros, Associate Professor at the department of Political Science, University of Missouri in the USA and he presented a lecture entitled “Lessons from the Chinese model of development for Africa.” Prof. Gros urged African governments to adopt some of China’s development policies in order to ensure real transformation in their economies. According to him, the following four policies helped to catapult China into becoming the great nation it is today.

The first policy he mentioned was The Household Responsibility System which involved the long term lease of state land for a number of years to individuals who had the right to use and earn income from the land. Under this policy the Chinese state did not relinquish ownership but rather gave huge incentives to the agricultural sector to boost productivity and this has ensured that China has not experienced famine for the past 40 years. In this regard, Prof. Gros called for the streamlining of land licensing regimes in Ghana (Africa) to avoid the hustle that investors go through to acquire land to establish industries.

According to Prof. Gros, the second policy that China initiated was the Township Village Enterprise (TVE). The TVE involved the creation of several small-scale industrial firms which were owned by the Chinese government but managed by private people. He stated that the TVE’s helped to China to attain “the great leap forward” in the 1950’s when several small-scale industries were created to turn agricultural raw materials into first line commodity products which in turn created more job opportunities for the Chinese people. He thus encouraged Ghana to for example, open more cocoa processing factories instead of just exporting the raw cocoa beans to the West.

The third policy was the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s). Under this policy, China insisted that countries that wanted to sell to the Chinese people had to build their factories and companies in China to ensure technology transfer. He emphasized that the SEZ’s were different from the Free Zones that had been created in Ghana and most developing countries whereby investors were allowed to repatriate almost 100% of their profits and also enjoyed huge tax breaks. According to Prof. Gros, the SEZ policy offered a window into China and not a door into China in order to prevent foreigners from coming in to exploit Chinese resources for their sole benefit. He was however quick to add that the Chinese government had to spend some initial capital to ensure that their environment was conducive enough for foreign investors in terms of basic infrastructure for eg. efficient sewerage systems, good health and educational facilities and even provided a separate electrical grid for investors.

The fourth policy Mr. Gros mentioned was the creation of a Sound Financial System in China and not the privatization of the financial sector. He stated that the financial sector in China which comprises of four State banks which control 75% of the Country’s capital stock, is able to lend money to Chinese investors, attract savings as well as channel these savings into productive activities which generate more income for China in a cyclical manner.

Prof. Gros concluded by stating that a critical analysis of the Chinese model showed that although Africa had experimented with similar models of economic development it often lacked the political will to enforce of laws and regulations needed to achieve development and growth.