Chinese president Xi Jinping began his historic two-day visit of Zimbabwe Tuesday, signing a number of deals, with a $1.2 billion power plant agreement topping the list.
Xi arrived in Harare Tuesday mid-morning to a 21 gun salute and pomp and fanfare, as Zimbabweans and Chinese lined up the streets to greet Zimbabwe’s most high profile visitor in at least 20 years. The Chinese president is leading a delegation of 200 people.
Mugabe has strongly pursued a “Look East” policy since the West isolated him over accusations of human rights violations. And in the face of western sanctions, China is a major investor in Zimbabwe, helping to keep the lights on.
The two leaders held talks and oversaw the signing, by their ministers, of 10 co-operation deals covering fields such as infrastructure construction, investment, financing, culture and wildlife protection to shore up Zimbabwe’s economy, which has fallen into dire straits under Mugabe’s watch.
Financial details of the deals were not immediately available. The most crucial agreement was on energy. China’s Sinohydro Corp won the $1.2 billion bid to add two generation plants at Hwange Thermal power station.
Zimbabwe currently generates half of its 2,200MW peak electricity demand, with rolling power outages affecting mines and industries.
SinoHydro is also currently working on the $500 million Kariba South expansion project, which is expected to bring an extra 300MW to the national grid by 2018.
Former Zimbabwean ambassador to China, Christopher Mutsvangwa, is ecstatic about Xi’s trip, eulogising that a country that “gives you power (electricity) is a dear friend”.
“In more than 35 years, we have not built a new power station. A country that gives you power is a dear friend,” he beamed. “The second largest economy in the whole world coming into your country and you think this man can just come for show off.”
However, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Japhet Moyo dismissed Xi’s visit. “As a trade union or as workers, we have not seen much from our Chinese colleagues,” he said.
“We did a study on the Chinese investment in Africa, including China in Zimbabwe on what it has brought to the population and the study does not indicate any benefit except that Chinese have brought unfavourable working conditions.”
Over the past few years, China has been accounting for about 30% of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Zimbabwe, but its nationals are often accused of overworking and underpaying staff.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority revealed that in 2014 China contributed over $200 million of Zimbabwe’s total FDI of $543 million.
By Janet Shoko
