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Chinese Investments In Zimbabwe Yield Minimal Benefits For The Country - Eddie Cross

2 months agoMon, 30 Dec 2024 12:48:45 GMT
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Chinese Investments In Zimbabwe Yield Minimal Benefits For The Country - Eddie Cross

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s official biographer, Eddie Cross, has said Chinese nationals have increasingly targeted Zimbabwe to secure raw materials for their industries, intending to eventually return to China.

According to Cross, there are now more than 85,000 Chinese nationals residing in Zimbabwe, but he said these people are not permanent migrants; rather, they all plan to return to China eventually.

In a recent article on his website, Cross asserted that China’s move to establish a presence in Zimbabwe is driven by the need to relocate steel production away from China due to trade restrictions from the US and Europe.

He also suggested that the Chinese are looking to transfer environmentally polluting industries to Africa, seeking to capitalize on the continent’s natural resources while avoiding the environmental constraints imposed at home. He wrote:

We have the best Chrome deposits in the world, 9 billion tonnes of it worth a conservative US$100 trillion.

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We have enormous Lithium reserves and they are loaded with other critical minerals that are in fact worth more than the Lithium and we do not understand what that means.

We applaud them because shortly we will be exporting 5 million tonnes of lithium concentrate a year to China, worth perhaps US$4 billion in new export earnings, four times our famous tobacco crop, but missing the fact that it might contain other metals and minerals worth many times more.

A quarter of our gold output goes to China and we have no idea about how they are doing that or what is involved, but the evidence of open cast mining, large investments in milling and extracting machinery for the small-scale mining industry here which is among the most important in the world, is everywhere.

They ignore environmental regulations and leave behind a moonscape of countryside that looks like a World War 1 battlefield.

They are exploiting our finest coal reserves for their smelters and steel production, even exporting their surplus

Cross said the exploitation of Zimbabwe’s raw materials by the Chinese began after the discovery of diamonds in Marange. He said:

It all started when we discovered the Marange diamond fields and they joined forces with our old army generals and created a company that was eventually responsible for 80 per cent of the production of raw diamonds there.

I estimate that US$30 billion in raw diamonds has been produced between 2008 and today. At one stage we were larger than Botswana as a diamond-producing State.

The Chinese company that was involved was a tiny, rural corporation in China, owned by the Red Army. Today it is a multinational corporation with a whole bevy of top-class hotels, a private Jet and headquarters for Africa in Mozambique.

Our old Army Generals all benefitted greatly, just look at the homes many of them have built in this country, the physical evidence of Chinese-owned real estate in Harare is everywhere.

The people of Marange still wallow in poverty and the active diamond fields do not have a single kilometre of the tarred road although they have an international standard airport which can receive large aircraft to fly products out and bring people and equipment in…

What concerns me, is that none of this activity has any application to the needs of Zimbabwe. When I investigated the Marange diamond fields in 2012, as a Member of Parliament, I was able, with relative ease, to get the production information I needed for 5 of the 6 mining companies involved.

Why, because they all employed Zimbabweans and I got daily output figures and even quality data (19 per cent Gemstone quality) and even sales data. The last remaining miner was Chinese owned and operated and they employed no Zimbabwean staff.

Cross argued that while Zimbabwe gains some benefit from exporting raw materials to China, the Chinese derive far greater advantages, all while causing significant environmental degradation. He said:

The benefit to Zimbabwe of this level of Chinese activity here is evident. They buy the majority of our tobacco, our ferrochrome exports run to tens of millions of dollars a year.

Drive past Hwange Colliery, owned notionally by the Government but in fact now largely a Chinese asset. The smokestacks of coke batteries belching into the atmosphere.

The queues of heavy-duty trucks carrying coal to local and regional markets. The road north and south now smashed and barely usable.

There is little or no value addition except for the primary production phase. There are no plans to invest in a Lithium refinery to produce a product suitable for use in the production of batteries.

Even the steel plant is only producing steel billets for export to China for conversion into finished products.

International sanctions may force them to produce steel for sale to manufacturers in the West but for the time being they are producing a product for export in primary form.

More: Pindula News

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40 Comments

Anonymous · 2 months ago
WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THESE CORRUPT MWANAWEKUMUSHA IDYA NEHAMA TSHONA DOMKOPS IN POWER? YIKUDAYISA ILIZWE KOKHU!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣 gwandabvu · 2 months ago
toilet iyo hanzi ladies kunerimwe side n varume the other side
Ian Douglas Smith · 2 months ago
As soon as we take over this country we are going to chase all these Chinese dogs away and no Court of all will stop this, they're going to pay heavily
Oncemore · 2 months ago
Our mps are very useless, all they want are expensive cars and allowances
1
😎 · 2 months ago
Sanctions was an elephant in the the room, Zimbabwe is couid have done wonders has there been no sanctions, Sanctions eclipsed totally the way we would have viewed the economy. Thats the reason why we had to Chinese as our Sanctions buster to restore our economic ecosystem besides doing so the country would have been a write off Vanhu vano complainer havaasi ma China here vakavaka NSS, ko Kariba South expansion, ko Airport and the RGM all within sanction bubble, tirimubundiro senayataya kudaro we emerged from the conquerer, at time sanctions helped us develop incredibly, Hezvo we have phones now latest 2simmed etc
Comrade Trabablas the First · 2 months ago
Wake up ndimi type dzisiri kurara nema 2kg e rice nenyaya yekungotiakauya thru Ed
mono · 2 months ago
you act like sanctions were imposed in 1980 from 1980 to 2000 Zimbabwe was a mess stop blaming sanctions for the country failure
ZimSketch · 2 months ago
is that a toilet
Concerned · 2 months ago
What we could have done was to take the Japanese and Chinese model when they took selected individuals to developed countries to be trained in different sactors of economy. On their return, they were impowered by their government to start companies. China and Japan is what it is because their government impowered their own people. The issue of being on our knees for investments on almost everythin, won't take us anywhere. We would realize depletion of our resources sooner or later. l always think that even if certain indigenous trees are found by foreign investors to be useful as raw materials to produce certain end products, we would all wake up to the call and put such trees to extinction. We have innovative people here but are not empowered. They end up been taken by developed countries, put them to full use, give them a hefty salary and live good.
Oncemore · 2 months ago
❤️❤️❤️🇿🇼🇿🇼🇿🇼It's never too late, if not careful we may lose everything because of these foreigners
ED pfocho · 2 months ago
Saka anozviti president ari kufungei
💅Shantel weGaro💅 · 2 months ago
Chinese guys are a burden for sure ...i once linked up with them havabhahare maBlacks atori nani
1
yiruma · 2 months ago
You mean prostitution money.
blaster · 2 months ago
wegaro unonyatsoziva iwee
I · 2 months ago
We have nothing to show for all those minerals he's talking about coz in reality they belong to top Zanu officials and their chinese friends...it's just sad sad...it just confirms hw much they are selling out....hw can a nation be that rich and the majority of the people go to bed hungry everyday
1
teni · 2 months ago
it's the same throughout Africa, Nigeria it's the oil.DRC it's the same story.Corruption is happening through out Africa.But you can't reverse that,we have to look ahead, Many of us cannot even afford to own a diamond mine.Even if we put Chamisa as president, Chamisa and his friends will start stealing minerals,it's human beings,human beings are corrupt all over the world.There is little we can do about that.
llvcoco · 2 months ago
We can't build a country on our own .We need a bigger Richer country to help us archive that.We must be grateful that China is willing to invest in our poor country.China is The Richest country in the world,we must be positive,we like complaining all the time. We must trust the process.Very soon we will be manufacturing lithium batteries,and Zimbabwe will be one of the richest countries in Africa.Lithium is the future oil .As you know the world is going electric.Oil is being replaced by lithium.Very soon Zimbabwe is going to be very rich. The question is what can we learn from our Chinese friends,As for me I'm working on starting an importing business,I want to import electric, kitchenware , clothes and shoes from china and open a business.I want to make friends with the Chinese, learn the language and establish business networks.God gave us the Chinese people as our friends,we must learn from them, skills transfer,so that by the time the Chinese leave this country,we would have learnt one or two things from them . Me personally I want China to help us as a poor country by opening factories and businesses so that we get jobs.Look at Thailand,They benefit a lot from having a Country like China as a neighbor, without China, Thailand will be a poor country.The world has evolved China is now the super power economically,Be positive,stop complaining,It will be fine,Very soon you will see the benefits of having a rich friend like China.China will make Zimbabwe great again.
laugh emoji1
Anonymous · 2 months ago
LLVCOCO. YOU ARE THE MOST BRAIN WASHED IDIOT IN THE WORLD. WHATS WRONG WITH SOME OF THESE PEOPLE OR YOU ARE CHINESE ON OUR PLATFORM BECAUSE THE REALLY ZIMBABWEAN WONT WRITE THAT. CAN YOU EVEN HEAR YOURSELF. NO WONDER WHY THESE CHINESE ARE LOOKING OUR COUNTRY. YOU SAID VERY SOON ZIMBABWE WILL BE STARTING PRODUCING BATTERIES. WITH WHATTTTT?? WHEN THEY ARE TAKING ALL THE RAW METRIAL LITHIUM FROM OUR COUNTRY
1
ZANU PF · 2 months ago
We have discussed the Chinese damages and unconventional ways of doing business in the Politburo unfortunately vakuru are afraid of facing up to Chine because ndovakachengeta power ravo. We know all the wrongs and mistreatment the Chinese are doing in the country but we are powerless at the moment and everybody knows why.
yiruma · 2 months ago
I agree with you my friend,Zimbabweans love complaining too much,there is nothing wrong with Chinese businessmen in Zimbabwe.China is the future,hate them or like them,It's the second richest country in the world.I don't know why Zimbabweans hate China so much.If you meet a Chinese businessperson please thank him/her for coming to invest in our country. Most of us are unemployed we need jobs,these people are investors why do we hate them so much.A person has come to give you a job and develop your country and you chase him away.The British and Americans are never coming back,the Chinese are now our new white people,we need to embrace them,These are the investors we were praying for,God has answered our prayers.
laugh emoji1
Muru · 2 months ago
We will never recover from the environmental degradation they are leaving behind. Look at what they have done in Shurugwi and the rest of the country. We can drive our own development from within We don't need big friends we need organized leadership that cares for our country. China itself was self driven and is still self driven it's development is pushed from within why can't we do the same?
Comrade Trabablas the First · 2 months ago
Farira 2kg rice rako re donation unyerere duziman
Oncemore · 2 months ago
The Chinese are unstoppable, maybe because they have signed an agreement with the government which runs for a certain period. With chances of renewing it
Oncemore · 2 months ago
The Chinese are unst
Anonymous · 2 months ago
Eddie haasi kudya nevene,nzara yakurova akukanganwa ka ED kkk
jivaschihwehwete@gmail.com · 2 months ago
mr cross go and advise the president.
Freedom Fighter · 2 months ago
Uhh l think as Zimbabweans we need to raise an alarm upon this issue because there people who sacrifice their lives for this country for every one to have freedom on everything.But the heroes just sacrificed their lives for nothing,going back to Smith Regime things were flowing fluently though we were not allowed to complain on such issues.Truely hapana kusiri kufa Govt yedu yatadza zvayo and zvakakonzerwa naRGM paakaita LEP(look east policy) now people are suffering at every corner of Zimbabwe but Chinese population is increasing on daily basis,looting our resources together with our high profiles,I promise you mass of Zimbabwe that 5 years to come this country will be a ghost country. Gvt yakadhakwa haidi kufumisa vana vayo
1
Mkanya · 2 months ago
Vakabvumidzwa kuuraya zvavo nyika nevena 🤔
Sir African · 2 months ago
Since 2005 we heard both Mugabe and his then minister of finance Mr Chinamasa talking of beneficiation of our natural resources .First it were chrome,diamonds and now lithium.Not even one brick has been bought and put in place for the construction of companies that will manufacture anything from the natural resources.
1
Ediots · 2 months ago
Cross , isnt he an Ediot too? A flip flopper, exceptional boot.li.ck.er. 👌 Whilst he makes sense just understand why he is barking ... he had the feeding trough dragged from beneath him, he is wallowing in hunger. without elections, its a dry spell for him.
meki · 2 months ago
Ndarwadziwa ini, ko ku paliarment vanoti kudii nenyaya iyi
HiLLBiLLIES VOLkSWAGEN 0774857233 · 2 months ago
CHITERERAYI VANABABA, INI NDIRI KUKUMBIRAWO KUNA PRESIDENT WEKU CHINA KUTI NYIKA YAKE ITIVAKIRE OR KUTI GADZIRIRA MAGETSI MUNYIKA MEDU CHETE
meki · 2 months ago
Isn't cross EDs adviser 🤔
weiler · 2 months ago
these chinese people must go before they intend to colonise us
1
Simbi · 2 months ago
pakashata that's true these pple var kukuvadxa tsvimbo dzedu and a big example munda wanc Wakatorwa top soil yese nemaMachines avo

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