For Nigeria and Africa at large to record a remarkable digital economic growth, they must look up to China for business collaboration. This was the concensus opinion by experts at the just concluded Africa-China Economic Partnership Agenda Conference, ACEPAC, 2022, held recently at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Lagos.
The event which had the Chinese Consul General, Mr. Chu Maoming in attendance was organised by the Afri-China Media Centre (ACMC) in partnership with the Renmin University of China, Beijing also harped on the need for Nigeria to create the enabling environment for the development and digital economic growth of the country.
It was noted that the continent’s digital economy is a tiny fraction of what it is in China with a volume of about US$7.1 trillion.
Africa’s digital economy is estimated to be about US$170 billion in 2025, a far cry from what it is in the rest of the world.
For instance, while internet penetration in Africa is an average of 33%, it is way below the 63% global average and the total number of Africans that have internet access less than that of India.
Whereas Africa has about 530 million internet users and does not produce or manufacture digital economy infrastructure, mainly relying on the outer world, China has a whooping 1.02 billion internet users.
Ikenna Emewu, Executive Director of the ACMC who spoke with the media assured that China was the right partner for Nigeria in this sector. He explained that while 89% of Africans with internet access get the service through the mobile gadget, he recalled that about 54% of the total mobile gadgets used in Africa come from China, starting from the Transsion brands, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Huawei.
Further to that, he explained that Huawei, ZTE, etc, all Chinese ICT firms have worked for years in collaboration with African countries and agencies, more than others to build the base of the continent’s digital economy.
In the past, for instance, Huawei has had contracts with China Mobile and Facebook to connect seven African countries with optic fibre cables through the seas. This project is expected to cover a distance of 37,000km.
The giant Chinese tech company has in the past signed tens of agreements on equipment supply to GSM companies in Africa, including those in Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Uganda, Morocco, and others. These have helped so much in advancing the growth of the sector in the continent.
At the same time, the company has partnered with many universities in Nigeria, for instance, to install ICT equipment and help lift their infrastructure base.
Also, in Nigeria, like in many African countries, the preponderance of a youthful population and the drive to venture into the sector as investors and in skills acquisition has been a winning point for the continent.
There have been hundreds of ICT and fintech startups in African countries powered by African young people and many of them have Chinese co-investors.
The summit was declared open through a speech by the Consul General of the Chinese Consulate in Nigeria, Mr. Chu Maoming who stressed the need for the two worlds to work closer together for the same objective. He listed a good number of Chinese player companies in the sector all over Nigeria and urged more cooperation.
He said: “According to a report recently released by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China’s digital economy reaches approximately US$6.7 trillion USD in 2021, accounting for almost 40% of GDP. Data from the Nigerian NBS also shows that the ICT sector contributed almost 18% to Nigeria’s GDP growth in the second quarter of 2021, second only to agriculture.
Thus, in the past few years, Chinese companies have been involved in developing Nigeria’s digital economy in variety of fields. Cooperation between the two countries is focused on three main areas.”
cooperation to fight the pandemic in the digital economy sector. Her paper was important to the extent that it is only when humanity s saved from a scourge such as the pandemic that they would discuss any other issues.
Prof. Yan Yan examined how the rapid development of the digital economy has contributed to the eradication of poverty in China. Through digital enablers, places that used to be inaccessible to modern development have been captured and made better.
She x-rayed how the income of rural people has improved through the digital economy advancement; how the left-behind kids’ syndrome has abated as young parents who used to travel to the cities to work and make a living, leaving their kids with grandparents, have been curbed and most of such parents now stay with their kids within the rural areas that were hitherto inaccessible and make a good living.
