Text: | Print|

Building momentum in Gabon

2014-08-04 08:13 China Daily Web Editor: Qin Dexing
1
Song Chen/China Daily

Song Chen/China Daily

On the outskirts of Libreville, Gabon, where women sell fresh fruit beneath palm trees and beach umbrellas, time seems to stand still.

Locals carrying baskets and boxes on their heads amble along in the stifling afternoon heat that blankets the Gabonese capital. Traffic slows to a crawl on narrow streets hemmed in by dilapidated buildings whose architecture reflects the country's French colonial history.

Like the wild-haired children who flop listlessly in the lee of whitewashed walls, it is as if progress has run out of steam here and staggered off to find a patch of shade.

In the decades after the slump in oil prices in the 1980s hit Gabon's petroleum-reliant economy, it was like this everywhere, locals say. National momentum slowed, and the country even began to slide backward under its weight of debt.

Infrastructure that was already inadequate became run-down, and plans for new infrastructure and upgrades were delayed and delayed again.

The neglected suburbs on the periphery of the city are a reminder of what was once the norm, and what might always have been, if China had not come to Gabon.

In the past decade, Libreville's city center and coastal areas have been rejuvenated, and China's hand in making that happen is everywhere to be seen. The contrast between the old urban areas on the fringes and the city center is profound.

The once static skyline of the central business district is now populated by cranes, each one hanging eagerly over buildings under construction.

The city's foreshore is now a massive construction site, fenced in with billboards that are plastered with images of the upscale hotels and marinas and shopping malls and skyscrapers to come.

The developers' logos are displayed in French, but this is merely a courtesy, a translation of the Chinese characters that loom larger still. Names such as China Harbor Engineering and Sinohydro stand out against the collage of faded posters from last-century advertising products from Paris.

In a walled compound on the outskirts of the capital, just off a rutted dirt road, Yang Yi pores over a map of the country. He taps Libreville, where more than a third of the country's 1.6 million residents live. His finger moves south, to where Port-Gentil, the second-biggest city, and the country's only deep-water harbor, straddles the coast.

There has never been an overland route that connects the two centers of population and commerce. Hundreds of kilometers of seemingly impassable jungle and marshland stand between them.

Yang, chief business representative in Gabon for the State-owned China Road and Bridge Corp, says that is about to change.

In March, CRBC began work on the first stage of a road and bridge project that will eventually unify Gabon. Few feats of infrastructure past or present can match its potential impact on the country.

"For years, Gabon has dreamed of this," Yang says. "Before, the only way to get to Libreville from Port-Gentil was by boat or by plane. The ships are slow and unreliable. The flight costs almost as much as flying to a neighboring country. Port-Gentil is the center of the oil and gas industry, and the country depends on that industry. This project, our project, is the most important project happening in Gabon right now."

Worth $600 million, 95 percent of the funds needed for the road's construction were financed by a 20-year, Chinese government loan with just 2 percent interest. It is goodwill, but it is not charity, Yang says. His company is making a decent profit.

"Gabon has wanted and looked at this project for 20 years, but they couldn't get it started. Companies from the US and EU did studies, but their prices were higher and they did not offer financing. We came here and offered a reasonable solution."

In the lounge of an upmarket hotel in downtown Libreville, former university lecturer turned investment consultant Ezzel Jebbari meets a procession of clients from all over the world, including some from China.

The word in local business circles is that the Moroccan-born economist has the ear of Gabon's president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, and Jebbari does not deny it.

China has brought much needed change to Gabon, he says, adding that the developing relationship is mutually beneficial.

"I'm an economist. The Chinese are not losing money here, even on a loan with 2 percent interest. Now, a loan with 2 percent interest, you can't get that anywhere in the world. Even you go to the World Bank and IMF, you can't get this.

"At the same time, this is a big opportunity for them (China). They need new markets, and they need to help their companies. It's a good opportunity for China but also a good opportunity for us."

But despite the clear benefits in employment, infrastructure development and knowledge transfer, human resources or a lack of skilled worker is a big challenge to Chinese companies.

Aviation Industry Corp of China is a company that is trying to tackle the skills shortage in Gabon. It has signed an agreement to establish three trade schools that will provide about 4,000 locals a year with qualifications to operate manufacturing, construction and agricultural machinery.

AVIC's vice-president, Liu Jun, says his company believes a skilled workforce is the foundation for successful nation building. A similar initiative AVIC launched in Kenya in 2009 has provided employment to 1,500 graduates, and the company is now in talks with the government there to massively expand the school to cater to as many as if 20,000 students a year.

Liu is open about the fact that African students learn on Chinese machinery, which in turn is expected to boost the sale of Chinese-made equipment. But he maintains this will lead to further mutual benefits because AVIC will consider setting up spare-parts manufacturing centers for Chinese equipment in Africa if the demand is there. That means more local jobs, he says.

"This is not pure donations or charity," Liu says. "It is a business. We believe we use the power of commerce to help people."

While healthy revenue from Gabon's resources sector means it is classified as a middle-income nation, the disparities between town and country, and rich and poor, are enormous. The figures from the World Bank show per-capita national income is $14,090, but the wealth is concentrated, and almost a third of the population still lives in poverty.

Knowledge transfer is one of the best ways China can help Gabon's disadvantaged raise their standard of living, Jebbari says. "Like any investor, it (China) wants to make money, but it also wants a transfer of technology and knowledge so Africans can learn how to do things. The Chinese have the capacity to help Africans and African countries reach the point that we want to reach."

The 93-km section of road CRBC is building from Port-Gentil is only the first phase of a planned two-stage development. More cash and another 270 km of blacktop will be needed to link up the initial stretch with the national highway that leads to Libreville.

Comments (0)
Most popular in 24h
  Archived Content
Media partners:

Copyright ©1999-2018 Chinanews.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.