It was a tiny entry in the Aug. 17 online edition of People’s Daily, China’s most influential newspaper. The headline read, “East China port does booming trade with Africa.” The port in question was Longkou, in bustling Shandong Province, which is preparing to launch two additional ocean carrier routes to Africa later this year.

In the past seven months, the article quoted Shandong Provincial Bureau of Port Shipping Services as saying that 41 ships carrying cement and “sundry goods” — machinery, electronics, chemicals, textiles, garments and leather products, all of which are manufactured in Shandong — left the port bound for African nations. Cement exports to Africa through Longkou totaled 970,000 metric tons in those seven months, a whopping 30 percent of China’s worldwide cement exports in the period, the article said.

Other Chinese ports are experiencing a similar boom to and from Africa, from mega- and breakbulk shipments to containerized, reefer and heavy-lift cargo. In July, Safmarine Container Lines started a monthly multipurpose vessel service from Zhangjiagang, China’s largest river port, and Tianjin, the country’s second-largest general port after Shanghai, directly into West Africa. The service calls at ports in Angola, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Sao Tomé and Principe, South Africa and Togo.

“With so many infrastructure projects under way in West Africa, this multipurpose offering gives us a real edge,” Verner Hammeken, Safmarine’s multipurpose-vessel manager in China, said at the launch of the service.

To the consternation of U.S. trade officials, policymakers and private-sector trade groups, trade between Africa and China not only has exploded, but also continues to grow at a pace that eclipses the growth in trade between Africa and the United States.

“It’s a subject that is attracting a considerable amount of attention among members, but there is no one opinion as to whether it is detrimental to U.S. interests, neutral, or if it’s a good thing,” said Tim McCoy, vice president of the Corporate Council on Africa, a Washington-based trade association that focuses on commercial relations between the United States and Africa. “Yes, there is increased competition, not only from China but also from India, but there’s not a unanimous opinion among our members on what it all means,” McCoy said.

What it underscores, many say, is the need for a different U.S. commercial strategy in Africa.

“If we want to compete with China, we can build railroads, put in power infrastructure and telecommunications infrastructure,” said Shelvin Longmire, a veteran Washington-based international consultant. “We may not like the way they’re doing it, but I see China’s activities delivering substantive capital-intensive projects that are going to benefit (African) countries, versus what the West was doing: extracting resources without putting infrastructure in place.”

Figures on China’s commercial foray into Africa are mind-boggling. According to U.N. and International Monetary Fund statistics, China’s two-way trade with Africa surged past $70 billion in 2007, compared with less than $1 billion in 1980, while U.S. trade with Africa grew to about $85 billion from about $23 billion in the same period. At $73.3 billion in 2007, two-way China-Africa trade was up 32.2 percent over the previous year, bigger than the jump in China’s trade with any other continent.

Between 1998 and 2006, Africa’s exports to China increased 2,126 percent against 402 percent in exports to the United States. To facilitate those exports, Beijing set up most-preferential-treatment agreements with 20 African countries, including tariff-free treatment on 454 products imported from the least developed nations. China is now Africa’s third-largest trading partner after the U.S. and France, with about 800 cash-flush Chinese companies operating on the continent.

By contrast, eight years after the inception of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, the main platform for U.S. commercial engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa, exports from that region to the U.S. have barely moved beyond oil. U.S. trade officials consistently complain about the “low participation” of U.S. companies in the region.

Exports from the 39 AGOA-eligible countries in 2007 totaled $51.1 billion, more than six times the amount in 2001, the first full year of AGOA, but petroleum products accounted for the bulk of those exports. While more than double its 2001 figure, non-oil AGOA trade totaled a paltry $3.4 billion in 2007.

That’s a sore point for advocates of U.S.-Africa trade and trade-related investment. “(U.S.) investment in Africa remains heavily concentrated in natural resources, such as oil and mining. We need to figure out how we can work together to increase and diversify investment flows to Africa,” U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab said at the annual AGOA forum in Washington in July.

Three African countries — Angola, Sudan and the Republic of Congo — are among China’s top 10 oil sources, with additional crude imported from Chad and Equatorial Guinea. But China’s huge appetite for Africa’s commodities goes beyond crude oil. There’s cobalt and other strategic minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo; timber from Mozambique; copper from Zambia; and iron ore and manganese from South Africa. South Africa is China’s fourth-largest supplier of iron ore.

In agriculture, Burkina Faso, Benin and Mali supply China with 20 percent of its cotton imports, Cote d’Ivoire is a key source of cocoa, Kenya provides significant amounts of coffee beans and tea and Namibia, large shipments of fish and fishmeal.

In return for this great takeout of raw materials and commodities, African countries, including those with governments that Washington deems corrupt, undemocratic or abusers of human rights, get no-strings-attached investment and 20- to 30-year low-interest loans with which the U.S. cannot compete. African countries, whose economies have been growing at 5 percent to 6 percent a year for the last decade, need new transportation, power and telecommunications infrastructures, manufactured goods and technical know-how, and China is happy to provide them. With $1.7 trillion in cash reserves, compared to the United States’ $62 billion, Beijing has much more leverage for deals in Africa than Washington.

China has launched large-scale infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, airports, housing, ports, hospitals and schools, in addition to energy cooperation with African countries; signed framework agreements with 19 African countries on loans with favorable terms; and forgiven debts of 32 African countries. The Export-Import Bank of China’s planned $20 billion or so in infrastructure and trade financing to Africa over the next three years outstrips the $7 billion or so in combined pledges from traditional Western donors, including the U.S., toward a special fund to tackle sub-Saharan Africa’s shortfalls in electricity supply, roads and other infrastructure. That $20 billion comes on top of China's previously announced $5 billion development fund for Africa.

To be sure, Washington has stepped up its commercial activities in Africa, particularly through the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Trade and Development Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Activities this year alone range from new trade and investment agreements and the creation of sector-specific development funds to new Ex-Im Bank of the United States, facilities and conferences on support for U.S. companies that invest in infrastructure development. In addition, Commerce Department and other agency officials are fanning out across the country, promoting Africa as a good place to do business.

At the Ex-Im Bank, efforts are under way to improve the bank’s financing competitiveness. In March, it granted special delegated authority to the African Export-Import Bank to provide up to $40 million in U.S. Ex-Im Bank short-term and medium-term financing, making it easier and faster for African buyers to obtain U.S. Ex-Im Bank support for their purchases of U.S. goods and services.

Early in the year, OPIC launched five Africa investment funds aimed at developing health care; commercial and residential real estate; technology, media and communications; capital markets and small and midsize enterprises. And, since 2006, USAID’s African Global Competitiveness Initiative has been providing technical assistance to sub-Saharan enterprises to enhance their export competitiveness, with a view toward expanding U.S.-Africa trade.

All that still is not enough to counter China’s clout, many contend.

“Emphatically ‘yes’ we do need to be doing more. If you look at the engagement of the U.S. Export Import Bank, the overall engagement when compared to others, including China, is not where we want it to be,” said McCoy of the Corporate Council on Africa. “If we do see China as a source of increasing competition, we are looking at such things as loan guarantees, available capital for investment — there we do see that the U.S. could be doing more,” he said.

Longmire added: “The (Defense Department’s establishment in 2007 of an) Africa Command is a militarization of the competition, which is inappropriate. If the U.S. is interested in competing with the Chinese, I would propose we compete on a commercial basis — emphasize capacity building, infrastructure development and more liberal trade policies.”

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