A more productive trading relationship with African nations and a transparent classification of China's market status were debated yesterday in the final day of the European Union conference in Macau.

During the summit aimed at assessing the EU's achievements in its last 50 years since the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1958, Portugal's deputy minister of foreign affairs and cooperation said that its developmental efforts so far in Africa had been unsatisfactory.

“It would be a good approach to have humility” in the EU's assessment of its efforts in Africa,” said  Joao Gomes Cravinho.

“Developmental aid (in Africa) has not been very successful.”

Mr Cravinho is hopeful a joint EU-Africa Strategy which was adopted during the Lisbon Summit last year will see the relationship between the two regions progress.

However the EU is still determined that future aid it sends to the region be tied to progress by the receiving governments.

“Where there isn't good government there usually isn't the developmental outcome,” said Mr Cravinho.

The deputy foreign minister also encouraged the Chinese, which he admitted had been much more effective in Africa, to use foreign investment to influence the continent's governments.

“Investments if they are to be secured have to be associated with good governance,” said Mr  Cravinho, sighting Sudan as a country where there is a “serious possibility of civil war”.

In response to an audience question following Mr Cravinho's speech on EU and Africa relations, the deputy foreign minister said the EU didn't see China's increasing presence in Africa impeding its efforts there.

“I don't think China is a threat at all to the EU in Africa,” he said, adding that the nation was already a factor on the continent and should become a “partner”.

During the session “The external action of the European Union: a union open to the world?” at the University of Macau, the EU's treatment of China come under some criticism from a local academic.

Zeng Lingliang the dean of the faculty of law at the University of Macau said that the EU's failure to recognise the free market status of China was discriminatory and “mainly a political decision rather than a purely technical one”.

Although more than 50 percent of the World Trade Organisation members now view China as supporting a “full market economy”, Mr Zeng argued the EU chooses to use the country's market status as “a bargaining chip to force China to meet with its other key demands in economic, social and even political areas”.

“Since no single standard [of a market economy] exists it is largely a matter of subjectivity and self and self-judgement,” he said.

The EU arguments against the recognition of China's free market status cling to the need to mount antidumping and countervailing investigations against its manufacturers.

In April the EU extended a tariff covering shoes to Macau after an investigation concluded mainland manufacturers were trying to avoid the duty by shipping products through the SAR.

Thursday, 29 May 2008

by Nigel Huxtable

Source: www.macaudailytimesnews.com