Chinese Imports To Africa: Stakeholders Make Case For Stricter Quality Inspections  

The recurrent complaint across Africa is that most Chinese goods tend to be sub-standard.

China is the world’s second largest economy since overtaking Japan in 2010. At the rate the economy is growing, forecasts say China is likely to take over the first position from the US by 2030. Across most parts of the world, China is expanding exports of high quality exports and the presence of its industries. Ironically, the situation in Africa is quite different as China is often blamed for the influx of sub-standard goods – especially electronic and electrical appliances, clothing, footwear and household utensils - though the high quality of its infrastructural projects is undeniable.  

But what explains this situation? Stephen Ketu, a Beijing, China-based Ghanaian entrepreneur blames African governments for failing to control the quality of imports. “Most African business people who come to China don’t understand the market. They end up buying sub-standard goods for resale back home at higher profit margins. This gives the wrong impression that China is flooded with such goods. Africa is the only place in the world where people complain about the quality of Chinese goods. Our importers are either not knowledgeable enough or are simply people of bad faith,” Ketu notes.

“Most Cameroonians importers buy anything in China to make 500 or 600 per cent profits back home. Such people don’t bother to find out which Chinese industries produce quality goods,” explains Denis Patrick Noah, a Cameroonian contractor in Guangzhou in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong who has been in the country for 10 years. However, the negative publicity created by sub-standard Chinese goods in Africa has not left the country’s officials indifferent. Luo Jun, a senior official with the Guandong provincial government accuses both African and Chinese business people and middlemen of “pursuing profit with no concern for quality.&rdquo...