Prof. Olu Ajakaiye, Research Director of Nairobi-based  African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) , has called on African countries to exploit the existing China-Africa trade relations to establish trade zones.

   Ajakaiye also spoke of the need to forge economic cooperation zones by taking advantage of the trade relations between the two continents.

  In a paper presented at an International Conference on China-Africa Economic Relations in Addis Ababa, on Wednesday, Ajakaiye said African countries should secure the support of Chinese authorities to encourage structured partnerships between African countries and Chinese firms.

He said that African countries should also utilise the existing trade relations to support their local entrepreneurs and to develop capacity by participating in the Chinese production sharing networks and also partner with the Chinese production networks to boost local production.

Ajakaiye said the continent should stabilise foreign exchange inflows thereby maintaining macroeconomic stability and competitiveness, implement export promotion policies and programmes necessary to retain competitiveness of manufactured exports.

He said that Africa’s overriding challenge remained how to secure high, sustained and pro-poor growth with attendant economic and social transformations and upgrading of technology.

The AERC director also advised African countries to pursue outward-oriented development strategy through the promotion of export led growth and take advantage of the market access provided through various preferential trade arrangements.

“African countries should also eliminate supply constraints through increased investment in infrastructure and the people and the consequences of lack of technological modernisation to meet increasingly stringent global production standards and remain competitive,” he said.

According to him, for African countries to survive the trade relations, they must escape from commodity trap deepened by the recently aborted natural resource boom and compromised economic diversification and increased vulnerability to various shocks.