Lessons to be learned from China’s infrastructure planning

AS SOUTH Africa’s port infrastructure creaks under
the pressure of growing volumes and environmental
impact assessments and changeable government
policies continue to delay critical upgrades, there are
valuable lessons to be learned from China.
“Chinese ports are gold standard,” says Maersk
Line’s director commercial management in Hong
Kong, David Zimmermann.
“There’s an acknowledgement that infrastructure
is critical to China’s growth and while the country’s
ports are currently highly efficient, authorities
recognise that they will have to increase capacity to
keep up with the tremendous growth,” Zimmermann
told FTW in Hong Kong recently.
“They are able to direct the resources efficiently
and effectively. They don’t have a lot of the
restrictions that other countries around the world
have and if they want to build they build quickly.”
In his view all of the gateways up and down the
coast for south, east and north China have plenty
of capacity for current volumes but are anticipating
huge growth.
For south China throughput is predicted to rise by
12% a year for the next seven years while Mainland
China is aiming to increase its port capacity 80% by
2010.
“Hong Kong is contemplating an additional
berth at CT 10 near the airport – it’s not confirmed
but it’s on the drawing board – with a range of
other developments on the go to keep pace with
burgeoning trade growth,” said Zimmermann.
And Africa features high on that anticipated
growth agenda.
“China has recorded an average annual rise of
28% in foreign trade since gaining access to the
World Trade Organisation,” says Zimmermann. “Our
growth figures for the period 2 002 to 2 006 are
31.2% for exports and 2 7.7% for imports."
While trade with North America and Europe is
on an upward spiral, the growth rates are far slower
than to Eastern Europe and Africa – South Africa in
particular.
“China – Africa trade has surged four-fold from
US$10.8 billion (R75.6bn) in 2 001 to $55.46
(R388.2bn) billion in 2 006,” said Zimmermann.
And for the first half of 2 007 bilateral trade
between China and South Africa was up 51.1% yearon-
year to US$6.24 billion (R43.7bn). “Exports grew
by 40.0% to US$3.22 billion (R22 .5bn) and imports
by 65.2% to US$3.02 billion (R21.1bn).
“South Africa has in fact outpaced Angola to
become China’s No.1 trade partner and export
destination in Africa.”
“There’s a trend away from commodities towards
finished goods like electronics, white goods and the
like,” says Maersk Line’s senior manager sales for Asia,
Africa and Oceania exports, Dominic Leung. And he
believes the quality of goods moving to South Africa
is improving as colour TVs and DVDs make their way
south.
“Congestion is not an issue in Chinese ports
except in peak,” says Leung.
Facilitating speedy throughput, Hong Kong’s
mainland border customs hours have been extended
to allow a more efficient flow of trucks, he added.