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In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

1. General

Investors need to carefully manage issues around land ownership
Speaking during a session on agriculture at this month’s World Economic Forum on Africa, Tanzania’s agriculture minister, Prof Jumanne Maghembe, said that land is a worry for many people and that it needs to be managed properly. Standard Bank recently warned that investors buying farmland in Africa need to do their homework before making purchases in a sector potentially fraught with political and emotional risks.
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Biofuels boom in Africa as British firms lead rush on land for plantations
British firms have acquired more land in Africa for controversial biofuel plantations than companies from any other country, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Half of the 3.2m hectares (ha) of biofuel land identified – in countries from Mozambique to Senegal – is linked to 11 British companies, more than any other country.
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2. China in Africa

ZCTU warns against Chinese plunder of Zim
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has warned against the ongoing plunder of Zimbabwe by foreigners, especially the Chinese, saying the country’s natural resources should benefit the people. ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo told journalists at the commemoration of Africa Day in Harare that Zimbabwe’s resources “are not for Chinese or any other foreigners to enjoy for a song.”
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Chinese company CAMCE to build rice, maize and cotton processing factories in Mozambique
The China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd. (CAMCE) plans to build three factories in Mozambique. One for husking rice, another for processing maize and a third for cotton, the chief executive of Sociedade de Gestão Integrada de Recursos (Sogir) said Monday in Maputo.
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China to fund building of agricultural centre in Mozambique
The Chinese government has promised to donate US$185,000 to fund the construction of the Umbeluzi Centre for Research and Technology Transfer (CITAU), in Mozambique´s Boane district, about 40 kilometres west of Maputo province, the official Mozambique news agency (AIM) reports here Saturday.
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China interested in building nuclear plant in East Africa
China wants to help build nuclear power generation in East Africa, uranium mining and investment company IBI Corp said in a statement after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, revealing China's undimmed appetite for overseas nuclear expansion despite the Japanese nuclear crisis this year. IBI, which has uranium-prospective land in Uganda, said its director, AJ Coffman, held an "encouraging meeting... with the relatively new umbrella organisation overseeing China's research and development of Generation 3 and Generation 4 nuclear power plant designs."
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China's ICBC to lend Zambia $285 mln for power line
China's largest lender Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) will loan Zambia $285 million for an electricity line linking southern and eastern Africa, Zambia's state-run power utility said on Monday. Construction of the power line will start in November 2011 and will be done by China's TBEA, said Ernest Mupwaya, managing director of Zambia's power company Zesco.
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Congo Starts $600 Million Rehabilitation of Railroad Network
Democratic Republic of Congo started a five-year, $600 million renovation of rail lines in the south- east of the country to boost trade, lower prices and develop its mining industry, Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu said. The project is being funded by the World Bank and the government, with $200 million coming from a minerals-for- infrastructure accord signed with China in 2009.
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China to expand investment in South Sudan after independence
The Peoples Republic of China - the world’s emerging second largest economy - has expressed its readiness to invest in South Sudan after its declaration of independence in July. The announcement came in a meeting this week between the vice president of the Government of Southern Sudan, Riek Machar Teny, and a visiting delegation from China’s ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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China calls for peaceful solution to conflicts in Sudan's Abyei area: FM spokesperson
China is paying attention to recent conflicts in Sudan's Abyei area, and urges north and south Sudan to solve their differences through negotiation and consultation, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu said Monday in a statement. "China hopes the two sides can adhere to peace and restrain themselves to solve their divergence through negotiations and consultations on the basis of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation and implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement," Jiang said.
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Busa calls for new trade relationship between Africa and China
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has called on Chinese companies to shift their approach to doing business in Africa away from raw materials exports to China to the creation of productive capacity and value-adding enterprises. “The solution to Africa’s high levels of unemployment and poverty, lies in us finding and agreeing on a new way of doing business through investing in value-adding enterprises in the continent,” said outgoing Busa CEO Jerry Vilikazi at a Business Forum in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
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Police co-operation between SA and China
Criminals thinking about committing crime in South Africa and then escaping to China have been warned that they will not be successful, the police ministry said on Monday. "If criminals contemplate committing crime in South Africa with a hope of escaping to China as a hideout and vice versa, they have been strongly warned," said deputy minister of police, Maggie Sotyu.
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China invites South Africa to jointly develop clean, renewable energy
China voiced the call for South Africa here on Thursday to jointly develop clean energy and renewable energy. The invitation was addressed during a meeting between visiting Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo and Chairman of South African National Council of Provinces Mninwa Johannes Mahlangu. Wu, Chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the country's top legislature, told Mahlangu that the successful experience China obtained in regard of energy-saving and renewable energy during its national development campaign could well serve to South Africa's newly-launched New Economic Growth Path.
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China-SA partnership to address poverty
The Comprehensive Strategy Partnership (CSP) between South Africa and China could positively address poverty and unemployment in the country, the department of trade and industry (DTI) said on Saturday. “The CSP that was signed by President Jacob Zuma last year and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jinato could contribute positively in addressing poverty and unemployment (in South Africa),” said acting minister of the DTI, Ebrahim Patel.
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Top Chinese legislator meets South African president on bilateral cooperation
Visiting Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo met here with South African President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday. The two sides both voiced call for all-round cooperation and richer content of the comprehensive strategic partnership and strengthened bilateral coordination.
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Chinese may invest in DRDGold as well
DRDGold ‒ South Africa's fourth-largest gold producer ‒ may follow the lead provided by Gold One International by attracting investment from China, following meetings between DRDGold CEO Niel Pretorius and some eight companies in Beijing earlier this month. Miningmx reports that at least two Chinese companies are interested in taking discussions forward, initially with a view to buying a stake in Blyvoor, the group’s highly marginal underground mine. Pretorius is not blind, however, to the possibility that discussion could be broadened to DRDGold as a whole.
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UNIDO, China sign agreement to promote tech transfer, investments
A US$1 million agreement signed on Tuesday, 1 June 2011, between the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and China will aim to help promote the inflow of foreign capital to Shanghai as well as the outflow of Chinese investments to developing countries and countries with economies in transition, in particular to Africa.
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First Africa-China Young Leaders Forum concluded, declaration reached
The first Africa-China Young Leaders Forum concluded here Sunday, with the Windhoek Declaration reached at the end of the day, calling on young leaders in Africa and China to take their responsibilities in national development and China-Africa cooperation. The forum, the first of its kind, brought together around 180 youth leaders from Africa and China, with 60 delegates from China, 60 delegates represent Namibia, and a further 60 from another 17 African countries.
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Sino-African fund set to swell in 5 years
The China-Africa Development (CAD) fund, the country's biggest equity fund targeting African investments, is set to expand to $5 billion in the coming five years, said Chi Jianxin, president of the fund. "We expect to finish raising the fund's second phase of $2 billion by the end of this year and will kick off the third phase afterwards," Chi said in an exclusive interview with China Daily. Based on current operations, the size of the fund may eventually exceed $5 billion, even though several conditions, such as an efficient exit channel, are required, he said.
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China-SADC investment forum held in South Africa
China, South Africa's leading trade partner which has been in the past focusing its investment interests in the country's mining and manufacturing sectors will soon "diversify" to other economic sectors and industries promoting job creation in South Africa, the Chinese investment body revealed Thursday. "South Africa is increasingly becoming China's investment focus and China wants to diversify its investments in South Africa to other sectors of the economy such as information technology, biotechnology, human resources and other industry services," China Industrial Overseas Development and Planning (CIODP) Vice President and Secretary General Fan Chunyong said at the China and SADC Investment Conference held at Sinosteel Plaza in Johannesburg.
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3. India in Africa

India gives Tanzania $190m aid, to boost trade
India said on Friday it would give Tanzania USD 180 million to upgrade water supplies in the East African nation, and the two countries agreed to remove tax hurdles and boost bilateral trade. New Delhi earmarked a further USD 10 million of aid for the education sector. The two countries also signed a deal for the construction of a USD 150 million hospital specialising in heart surgery in Dar es Salaam, helping Tanzania save millions of dollars spent each year sending patients for referral treatment in India.
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Kamal Group of India Plans to Invest $213 Million in Tanzanian Steel Mill
Kamal Group of India plans to spend 327 billion shillings ($213 million) establishing a steel mill in Tanzania, Indian High Commissioner Kocheril Velayudhan Bhagirath said. The facility will have the capacity to produce 700,000 metric tons of metal a year and will be the biggest in East Africa, Bhagirath said in an interview today in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital. The investment is part of a package of accords being announced by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is scheduled to arrive in the country later today for a two- day state visit.
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India, Africa call for end to Libya bombing
Amid growing regional and international concerns about the conflict in Libya, where NATO has intensified its bombing campaign in recent days, India joined Africa in calling for an immediate ceasefire and for a negotiated end to the violence there. The Addis Ababa declaration issued here on Wednesday at the end of the Second Africa-India Forum Summit took note of the U.N. resolutions under which the NATO is using military force against Libya and stressed that “efforts to implement them should be within the spirit and letter of those resolutions.”
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Africa to back Indian push for U.N. reform in September
If the views of the 15 countries taking part in the Africa-India Forum Summit here this week are indicative of the overall mood on the continent, the biggest political payoff for New Delhi from its renewed engagement with Africa could well be an accelerated process of reform at the United Nations, when the 66th session of the General Assembly starts in September.
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India inks trade and investment deals with Africa
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed trade and investment deals on Wednesday to expand India's economic footprint on the African continent, where China has made huge advances. The Indian premier offered a $5-billion credit line for its trade partner at the start of a two-day summit with some 10 African leaders in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Singh also signed the Addis Ababa Declaration, a political agreement calling for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including an expanded Security Council in which Africa and India have pledged each other's support for a permanent seat.
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All the way from S Africa to teach India about safe motherhood
Rarely do we come across youngsters who are both willing and courageous to dedicate their lives in the service of society. Meet Hellen Mammeja Kotlolo, a 27-year-old nurse and midwife from South Africa, who is one such youngster who spent nine months educating Indian women about maternal health. Kotlolo, who participated in Ashoka young championship of maternal health, was chosen as one of the 15 international champions who got an opportunity to represent their country on an international platform.
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Cairn India eyes expansion into east Africa
Cairn India, majority held by Cairn Energy is interested in expanding into east Africa, a senior company executive said on Wednesday. "We are looking to grow our business elsewhere and east Africa is an obvious place to consider," David Ginger, Cairn India's director of exploration and new ventures, told a regional oil and gas conference in Nairobi.
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4. In Other Emerging Powers News

BASIC Meet Demands Developed Countries Commitment to Kyoto Protocol
Ministers discussed the work required to achieve a comprehensive and balanced outcome in COP17 and CMP7 in Durban. Ministers indicated that COP17 and CMP7 must continue to work within the framework agreed in Bali, and in this context address the work programme agreed in Cancún, following the agenda agreed in Bangkok, with a view to complete the mandate of the Bali Road Map. They considered the challenges and possible priority elements on the road to COP17 and CMP7 in Durban.
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Brics: scrap 'obsolete' IMF deal on European chief
International Monetary Fund (IMF) directors for five key emerging market economies on Tuesday said it was time to scrap an "obsolete unwritten convention" that requires the head of the IMF to be a European. In a joint statement, IMF directors for China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Russia, or Brics countries, criticized European officials for implying that the successor to former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn should continue to be a European.
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Medvedev commits Russia’s support to Africa
In his message sent to The New Times, Medvedev said that Africa Day is important for the continent to reflect on its aspirations for freedom, unity, peace, stability and sustainable development. “In the recent years African countries have been steadily moving on the way of fundamental transformations and modernisation. A lot has been done for acceleration of growth rate, strengthening of political, economic and cultural unity on the continent,” the Russian leader said. The Russian President said that Russia would continue to render the most active assistance to Africa and initiatives by the African Union as well as sub-regional communities towards peace and security and creation of their own peace keeping potential.
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The rebirth of Russian foreign aid
Russia spent $472.32m on foreign aid in 2010, according to the Russian ministry of finance's report released in advance of this week's G8 summit in Deauville, France. The country's aid spending, according to the report, dropped from $785m in 2009 to $472.32m in 2010 – a decrease of 40%. However, Russia had only temporarily increased its aid budget in 2009 to soften the blow of the global financial and economic crises, particularly in the neighbouring former Soviet republics, the report says.
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Huawei's Bharti Africa contract worth $400m, sources say
Bharti Airtel has awarded a contract to Chinese telecoms gearmaker Huawei Technologies to expand and manage its mobile network in Africa, the companies said, in a deal that two sources said was worth about $400 million. Bharti said in February that Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei would be its network partners in Africa.
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SA lags behind other Brics in Angola deals
SA LAGGED behind Brazil, Russia, India and China, its fellow members in the Brics emerging market bloc, in using its political and commercial capital to clinch significant contractual agreements in Angola, research published last week by financial services group Standard Bank found. Angola is the continent’s second- largest producer of crude oil and accounts for 6% of Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), 10% of its trade and 5% of investment flows. Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba warned last week that SA would lose out to the other Brics members on deals on the continent if an innovative plan was not in place to conquer these markets.
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India working on new manufacturing policy
India will formulate its new policy for increasing share of manufacturing in its gross domestic product with a view to create additional jobs in the country. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a meeting on June 2 of senior ministers to give direction for firming up the policy. Its draft prepared by the Industry Ministry has suggested flexibility in labour laws and changes in environment norms in big industrial enclaves.
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Culture clash complicates China's Brazil push
Stocking shelves in a Chinese grocery store, Thiago warned that he didn't want to be caught chatting during working hours. Within seconds, however, the Brazilian unleashed a pent-up flood of complaints about the owners, who lingered just beyond hearing distance. "My bosses have never heard of a day off," said the 20-year-old, who would only allow his first name to be used, for fear of losing his job. "Vacations? Forget it. They pay well and they pay for extra hours, but they don't understand that some things are more important to Brazilians than money.
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Sarkozy calls for new rules on emerging powers
It is time to impose rules on China and India on issues such as climate change and trade as emerging powers can no longer be classified as poor countries, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday. Emerging economies have now become a third category of countries between the rich and the poor, Sarkozy said during a press conference at the ongoing G8 Summit in the French coastal city, Deauville.
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India, Russia to help boost democracy in Nigeria
India and Russia have congratulated Nigeria on a smooth presidential inauguration with a pledge to help strengthen democracy in the country. India’s Minister of Water Resources and Minority Affairs, Salman Khurshid, made the pledge on Sunday in Abuja, in an interview with newsmen. Khurshid, who is also the Head of the India delegation to the inauguration ceremony, said the smooth inauguration was a sign of healthy political growth and development in Nigeria.
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Malaysia Smelting Signs Mineral Concessions Agreement With Congo
Malaysia Smelting Corp., the world’s third-biggest tin producer, signed a confidentiality agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo to develop mineral concessions in the war-torn east, Congo’s mines minister said. The company will take over mineral concessions in Maniema, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces from the government-owned miner Sakima, Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu said today.
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5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

Shifty time
South Africa is not alone in having to face rising labour costs and a critical skills shortage. It shares these unpleasant scenarios with China and India, the world’s two fastest-growing large economies. India's wage and salary costs are forecast to rise by 13% this year as its reserve bank battles to control inflation. Chinese wage costs are predicted to rise by 9% and it risks losing jobs to other low wage and high productivity countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. There are also shifts – chasing comparative advantage – from China to India.
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Bidding to green the grass more
“When elephants fight,” Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi told Business Standard in Addis Ababa recently, “the impact is felt by the grass.” Zenawi’s comment, accompanied by a knowing smile, came in answer to questions posed by visiting Indian journalists on the “new scramble for Africa” clearly underway across the vast continent between Asia’s largest nations and rising economic powers, India and China. Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh completed a four-day trip to Ethiopia where he attended the second India-Africa Forum summit – he travels to Tanzania for the next two days – and unveiled a series of dazzling initiatives, New Delhi seems to have clearly made its most impressive bid yet for influencing hearts and minds across Africa.
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India-China competition benefiting Africa: Diplomats
Growing competition between India and China is helping African countries get quality expertise and investments from two of Asia's fastest growing economies, say African diplomats. "We are happy that there is intense competition between India and China to gain African markets. It is very good for us," said Katureebee Tayebwa, counsellor at the Ugandan High Commission in New Delhi. "These countries are ready to make huge investments in various African nations without any conditions. They are obviously giving stiff competition to the US and European countries," Tayebwa told IANS here.
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India can earn goodwill by helping Africans in their real needs
The second India-Africa Summit in Ethiopia comes at a moment when average economic growth in the African continent has returned to the decadal average of 5%. A growing Indian economic juggernaut and an upwardly mobile African economy are natural counterparts with more complementarities than competition in their product mixes. Cognisant of the fundamental economic interests at stake, India and the 16 African states, whose heads of government and business delegations are attending the summit, are prioritising concrete trade, investment and technology transfer issues at the top of the agenda. There is a palpable sense across Africa that India's dynamic private sector can bring tremendous benefits to the continent's poor without the accompanying political bossiness characteristic of the EU and the US.
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IDC takes lessons from Brazil
The idea that South Africa would look to a development bank in Brazil is even more significant when one considers that for years economists repeatedly wrote off the South American country as one of all talk and no action. But in the last decade or more, things have begun to change. Last year, Brazil grew 7.5% and this year it overtook Italy to become the world's seventh-largest economy. Much of this growth is being driven by loans to businesses and infrastructure projects by Brazil's development bank, BNDES. The bank has more than tripled its lending over the last five years, so much so that it is now one of the biggest development banks in the world exceeding even the mighty World Bank.
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Statement by Ambassador Mandisi Mpahlwa of South Africa, Peoples’ Friendship University, Moscow, 18 May 2011
I would like to start by highlighting the importance South Africa attaches to BRICS. From the outset, South Africa saw more in this mechanism than had most commentators. For us, it was never about the size of the economies, populations or landmasses of the BRIC member countries. Rather, South Africa sensed that BRIC was no longer an economist’s forecast or an academic prediction of which developing countries would first emerge to share centre stage with the leading economic powers. BRIC in a sense already existed in reality as an association of like-minded countries with a reputation for being independent and committed to reforming global decision-making structures to make them more balanced, representative and hence better able to address contemporary realities.
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The Global Fund, China, and Civil Society
Last week, I went to Beijing to attend a conference on “China’s Emerging Global Health and Foreign Aid Engagement” co-hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and the China Institute of International Studies. My presentation focused on the evolution of Chinese domestic decision-making on global health and foreign aid programs in Africa. Prior to my departure, news came out that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had frozen payments of grants to China worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the New York Times, the Fund’s decision seemed to be “rooted in a collision between the fund’s conviction that grass-roots organizations must be intrinsically involved in the fight to control diseases like AIDS, and the Chinese government’s growing suspicion of any civil-society groups that are not directly under its control.” The Times’ speculation was later confirmed by the Chinese Ministry of Health officials.
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