Managing the value chain transition

South Africa is looking for help from China to help it move up the value chain and quicken its industrialization, says Rob Davies, minister of trade and industry of South Africa.

"South Africa's exports to China are dominated by primary mineral commodities, and those are very much dependent on the vagaries of world prices. Those commodities are also low on the value chain," he says. "Our ambition in South Africa and the African continent is to move up the value chain and to focus on industrialization, and that ambition is understood and shared by China." Davies said during a news conference in Beijing at the South Africa-China Business Forum last month.

Davies, who was accompanying South African President Jacob Zuma, says China and South Africa are experiencing a higher level of consensus about the direction in which they need to move their economic cooperation.