Home Companies Countries Minerals Espanol. Search for. Beijing put up the money to build Zambia China Mulungushi Textiles and provided the expertise to run it. It grew to become the biggest textile mill in the country, manufacturing 17 million meters of fabric a year and , pieces of clothing, and winning international awards for the quality of its cloth. The mill employed more than 1, people, propped up the economy of Kabwe in northern Zambia and kept thousands of cotton growers in business.
But last month the factory shut down production, strangled by a new wave of Chinese interest across Africa that some critics say amounts to little more than another round of foreign plunder, as Beijing extracts minerals and other natural resources at knock-down prices while battering the continent's economies with a flood of subsidized goods and surplus labor.
He also faced protests from the sacked Mulungushi factory workers. Hu rejected accusations that China was exploiting Zambian labor and resources. The growing Asian presence in Zambia even became an issue in last year's presidential election, with the opposition threatening to throw out of the country large numbers of Chinese traders and laborers who have become an increasing source of agitation for taking business and jobs. One of the problems, say the opposition, is that no one can say just how many Chinese there are in Zambia.
The government told parliament there are 2, but economists say the real figure runs into the tens of thousands. What is the point in letting them in to do that? There's a lot of Chinese here doing construction. Zambians can do that. The Chinese building firms are undercutting the local firms. The whites were bad, the Indians were worse but the Chinese are worst of all,'" Scott said. The government has accused the Patriotic Front PF of racism and, in the run up to the election, Beijing warned that if the opposition won it would pull out of construction projects.
The PF lost but it came out ahead in the cities, where the anti-Chinese message played well. Dipak Patel, Zambia's trade and industry minister until last September, said the government was mistaken to ignore growing resentment. That's not the kind of investment we need. I understand they have 1. This needs to be dealt with because you'll end up with a situation with what happened in Uganda with the Indians. If it's just shipping out resources and shipping in cheap goods and people that's not to our benefit.
