It’s Possibe!

By:Dr. Abarru Gebeda

Mr. Sufian Ahmed, Ethiopia’s Minister for Finance and Economic Development, made a remarkable and bold forecast recently by stating that his country could be a middle income nation in the next twenty years.

Like Mr. Sufian, China’s President Hu Jintao has made a lofty forecast of his country’s economic future, predicting that China by 2020 will have an economy of $4 trillion, quadrupling its gross domestic product. Equally, Prime Minister Msnmohan Singh has made his prognostication that India will double it’s GDP from $560 billion to $1.75 trillion.

In all of the above cases, these goals are achievable, without a doubt.

I am a firm believer in Ethiopia’s magnificent economic development of the last decade and if the country continues on its current path, I believe it will easily make Mr. Sufian’s prediction a resounding reality, obliterating the hopes and aspirations of the doomsayers.

Here is why I think the doomsayers might face their final quietus.

There are several pragmatic factors that will aid the Ethiopian middle income metamorphosis, but I will pick two major factors, the advent of China’s involvement and the burgeoning tourism industry in Ethiopia (added by the explosive export of raw materials) that will shape the course. Ethiopia, therefore, must focus on its China connection and the business of tourism very seriously.

Allow me, now, to elaborate on the China connection first.

The China Connection:

The incredible entry of China’s input into Africa in the last decade, a country with which Africa has had very little contact, has opened the floodgate of opportunity, with an unimaginable potential to deluge the continent as never before. The untapped African market, its resources and its potential, for the first time in its history has found a partner, a partner whose main goal is to bestow on Africa its abundant proceeds directly to the people, unlike the irresponsible relationship other partners in the past had with the dictators. The behemoth Elephant, therefore, has walked in, especially when America’s soft power is declining (its ability to persuade and influence other nations without direct threats), and Africa should now make permanent room for its new guest, the goliath of the future.

Things have dramatically changed in only a few years, though. In the early 1990s, America appeared to be at the pinnacle of its soft power with its information technology that powered its economy, placing its businesses at the top. American music, film and television flooded local markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Here, America didn’t have to lift a finger to bring about democratic change since its soft power, acquired from its cultural and political attractiveness, manifested that desire.

Not anymore.

Take a good look at Australia, the land of Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson, whose cultural ties with the US, after its disentanglement from England, have been unwaveringly strong for the last five decades. However, a recent study by Lowy Institute, a respected Australian research organization, found that more than 84 percent of the Australians polled have positive feelings for the Japanese, with only 57 percent polled showing the same feelings about Americans. Similar polls taken in many other countries ranked the United States eleventh for its cultural, political, popular and business attractiveness. Part of this decline in American influence has been a direct result of America’s involvement in Iraq, with most of the world venting its anger at American foreign policy, which then transformed to anger at American businesses.

This scenario catapulted the China-Africa relationship, with the lingering Iraq war dismantling American influence abroad. Now countries like Australia, an ardent US ally, are becoming increasingly skeptical of Washington, and even dismissive of American values. China has more appeal today in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique (and most likely in Melbourne tomorrow), than America enjoyed at the beginning of the 1990s.

Is the advent of the Chinese juggernaut good for Africa?

Keep in mind that Africa is a continent with a plethora of mind boggling resources still untouched. It’s abundantly large, enough for all actors, including India, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and even Iceland, to participate in the bonanza. Any nation that isn’t jumping on the African bandwagon today is in a state of hibernation, and, of course, America shouldn’t necessarily lose its influence in Africa, but, yes, it has to change its outlook on the continent. Like Chinese businessmen flooding to Gambia or Sierra Leone, American businesses have to venture out into Africa, seizing onto opportunity before it is too late. That’s why we call such conditions of lethargy a state of hibernation. America is smart, America is innovative, and America has a bustling energy that will find its way back into the heart and minds of the African people. Make no mistake that the United States remains still an incredibly dynamic giant whose presence in the world arena is bound to last for centuries (unless the giant starts to self cannibalize); therefore, maintaining a sold relationship with the US should be paramount to all African nation. The trick is in balancing the relationship vis-à-vis other players who want to share the stage. 

Having said that, I believe the advent of the Chinese juggernaut, unlike the advent of the ideologically-bent Soviet juggernaut in the 1980s, is the right recipe for Africa. In 2002, China gave $1.8 billion in development aid to Africa, and has almost doubled its aid for the ensuing years. In the last five years the growing focus in promoting Chinese cultural and language studies resulted in almost 1,800 African students studying in China in 2003, with almost 10,000 students to enter Beijing thereafter. Chinese medical schools and physicians train African doctors and give medicine and equipment free of charge, fostering a profound relationship. This symbiosis, of China-Africa, has matured very fast and very strong. Through multiple programs and exchanges, the trust factor between China and Africa has grown, taking the relationship to another level. In 2005, the number of Chinese tourists to Africa has reached 110,000, a 100 percent increase over 2004, making Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe the largest recipients of the tourist revenue. (Do not be surprised in the next five years if Addis Ababa and the various tourist attraction centers in Ethiopia are flooded by Chinese restaurants!)

Obviously, the Chinese investment in the continent has grown, with some 90,000 migrant workers from across China moving to Africa, introducing a new Chinese Diaspora, there to stay. The Chinese, keenly aware of the African anger against the Indian population in the 1970s (instead of reinvesting in the country of their birth, they remitted all of their money back to India), are wise to draw from past experience, and are now moving in the right direction.

As the Chinese-entrepreneurs migration to Africa has only begun, with the numbers expected to reach millions in the next decade, the possibility of the African metamorphosis isn’t a wild dream. Having built, in the last decade, with its neighbors (India, Russia, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and India, with the exception of Japan), a sound relationship, China is now poised to repeat the same experience in Africa. China’s proactive engagement of its periphery is serving as the textbook guide for its engagement in Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola and many other African nations. Loaded with such an ambitious agenda, passionate about its future of global leadership, China’s cooperative diplomacy is, therefore, its defining inroad to Africa.

In less than a decade after the advent of Chinese involvement, Chinese influence today is impacting Africa like never before. Equally, the Chinese summits and informal meetings held in African capitals are paying dividends. In December 2003, the first Sino-African business conference held in Addis Ababa resulted in agreements for 20 projects, with a total value of $680 million. African leaders are also keen to see the emergence of Chinese influence. The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Mr. Melese Zenawi, said: “China’s exemplary endeavor to ease African countries’ debt problem is indeed a true expression of solidarity endorsement.” Now Gabon, Sudan, and Angola look to China for leadership in their political and economic trajectories. In multiple countries in Africa, Chinese soft power has by far outweighed American soft power. Indeed, the Chinese strategy has worked for them as well as for Africa, giving the Chinese access to vast resources across the continent. Nigerian oil fields are dominated by the Chinese today. Chinese companies are mining African minerals from Angola to Congo. South Africa has a close trade relationship with China, giving hope to China’s “African Doctrine” a promising future.

So far the relationship is cozy. Even in on an international level and in UN forums, China had sided with African delegates, projecting itself as the champion of freedom, depicting the US, which has largely ignored proposals favored by African nations, as a bully and uncaring. You can ask the questions, too, whether the United States, the sole superpower, will tolerate a peer competitor in the African continent?  Can the United States look the other way when the Chinese, with their exploding demand for energy, dominate the Nigerian oil fields, even approaching Venezuela?

No clear and single answer emerges for these questions, but the fact that the Asian subsystem of the global order is going through a dramatic transformation, with China taking the lead role, is a fact. To say that China aspires to be the hegemon of the region is an understatement, and for Africans to ignore the inevitable Chinese arrival (fearing the United States reaction at some future time), is foolish.            

A decade earlier China’s critics in America, after sensing its rise, were highly skeptical, saying that the Chinese weren’t truly concerned with the plight of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican-Americans or the Turkish guest workers in Berlin, casting doubt that China may be trapped in its narrow mentality of racism. Guess what? Today, in Latin America and Africa, the major players are the Chinese, who, after receiving profound cultural training, are easily mingling in Addis Ababa or Khartoum with Africans and Arabs, effectively extinguishing the ill-wishers presage. Again, the same pundits predicted that China would totally disintegrate, like the Soviet Empire, citing examples, particularly tensions between the economically robust coastal states and the weak, stagnating interior. That too didn’t materialize, as China, having pulled itself together with rapid economic growth throughout the country, has moved forward. Today, not only is China the fastest growing economy in the world (not to mention that it also has the fastest growing military budget), it is expected to displace the United States in the first half of this century and become the number one economy in the world.

With 1.5 billion robust consumers hungry for raw materials! 

And now enter Ethiopia.

The Chinese know very well that access to Africa begins in Ethiopia. They have smartly taken advantage of the ripe opportunity, by fully immersing themselves there in business, even establishing “Confucius Institutes,” encouraging graduate students to study in China. In 2004, Chinese export to Ethiopia quadrupled, making up over 93 percent of the two nations’ bilateral trade. In an effort to ease the one-sided trade, China has scrapped tariffs on 190 commodities from 25 African countries, making Ethiopian goods easily accessible to the Chinese population. Given its voracious appetite for raw material to feed its burgeoning economy, China could be a major trade partner of Ethiopia, in coffee, hide and agricultural products to possibly energy. Imagine the hungry eyes of Chinese flower lovers in Hong Kong, dying for Ethiopian roses!

Ethiopia can expect a large influx of Chinese migrants in the future, as well, whose rapacious appetite for manifesting business will be contagious to the majority of Ethiopians. China’s cooperative diplomacy in Ethiopia, added with its impressive economic assistance, will grow even more, making Ethiopia’s aspiration to eradicate itself from poverty and economic doldrums a tangible reality.

Ethiopia could also learn from the Chinese experience on how to eradicate poverty. In twenty years, between 1981 and 2001, the proportion of the Chinese population suffering from poverty fell from 53 percent to 8 percent, a dramatic and significant difference. Four hundred million less are now living in abject poverty than two decades ago. Although much credit goes to China’s manufacturing development, Beijing’s tough agricultural reforms played a major role in poverty reduction. Ethiopia, with its amazing fertile lands, can utilize the same type of agricultural reforms to see its own poverty reduction materialize in the next two decades. China wants Ethiopia, just as much as Ethiopia wants China. I believe the future for them is an amazing bonanza.

The Tourism Connection:

Ethiopia, one of the oldest Christian-Muslim nation, that has opened her doors to the ancient Israelites who were escaping the excruciating grip of the Pharaohs, and to the Prophet Mohammed’s followers who were fleeing their persecutors, has done poorly in the tourist business, given its magnificent history of magnanimity and hospitality. More people from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, and even Yemen go to South America than come to Ethiopia (which is only a couple hours’ flight to their south), a country that once gave refuge to their ancestors as they valiantly defended their religion and cultures. They can see the incredible symbiosis between Christians and Muslims in Ethiopia, unlike anywhere else, a lesson the Egyptians would love to pick up, along with the enchanting artifacts they could retrieve.

Israeli tourists, for example, until very recently, hadn’t discovered the beauty of this marvelous land, with its breathtaking climate and matchless hospitality. Now river rafting Israelis in the Omo River region can’t get enough of the sport and the water and the sun. American Jews during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie were ubiquitous in Addis Ababa; I am sure they will return in droves once they are told the story of King Solomon and Queen Sheba.   

 Ethiopia should publicize its amazing history and dazzling climate to the world. For example, it should go to Armenia and remind the Armenian population that the Armenians, at the dawn of the 19^th century, who had become stateless, driven out of their country by the millions, had been warmly welcomed by Emperor Menelik, providing Ethiopia as a place of relief and peace to the desperate and persecuted souls. Travel hungry Armenians would flock to Ethiopia by the thousands, away from the dour weather of Europe, to join the free spirited Israelis in the Omo River, and at the same time learn a little history about their kin in this wonderland.

Ethiopia should also turn to its farther east, inviting the millions of Hong-Kong travelers, and the adventurous Japanese, who are tired of seeing high rise buildings in depressing climates, to come for sunbathing in Bahir Dar or Awassa. Tens of millions of Asian travelers, not getting enough respect and hospitality in the West, will be captivated by the attention they get in Ethiopia, a land of profuse bowing (the Japanese would go gaga!), compared to the modest acknowledgement rendered to them elsewhere. It’s all about hospitality and Ethiopians stand tall and mighty with their endless cordiality. I don’t see why this natural Ethiopian treasure of kindness and gregariousness cannot be a commodity to be commercialized!

There are, however, a few things that the government should put in place in order for the tourism industry to grow. To siphon billions of dollars, certain conditions must unravel first. Before the country is a full participant in the tourist business, the sub agents (first class hotels, international restaurants, air conditioned coaches, entertainment places, etc.) must blossom.

Ethiopia can also learn valuable lessons from the experiences of Israel, India and Jamaica, three unique nations with rich tourism backgrounds.

First, let’s take Israel.

True, today Israel competes virtually in every industry, with an escalating demand for its high tech commodities all over the world. But, before Israel’s vibrant economy jumped into the technological sector and before it was counted in with the region’s economic power, the greater chunk of its revenue in the 1960s and the early 1970s came from tourism. And the movie “The Ten Commandments,” directed by Cecil DeMille and played by Charlton Heston, along with Yul Bryner and Anne Baxter (1956), galvanized much of the world to an awareness of the existence of the state of Israel. Haifa and Eilat, lifeless ports where Israeli soldiers once spent their ennui-filled days, suddenly became tourist Meccas, with hundreds of busy hotels showing over 80 percent occupancy year in and year out. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Haifa and Eilat became bustling cities, with mesmerizing nightclubs and Four Star hotels adorning their landscape.

India’s tourism, just like Israel’s tourism, was also galvanized by its magnificent movie, entitled “Mother India,” released in 1957. This classical movie, directed by the famous Mehboob Khan, starring Nargis (Radha), Suni Dutt (Birju), and Rajinder Kumar (Ramu) rocked the world, particularly the Indians who lived abroad at the time. Immediately after the movie’s release many Indians started going back to their homeland en masse, bringing the much needed revenue to a languishing country, which was struggling to extricate itself from the jaws of famine in those days.

For Jamaica, the fame and attraction of its famous Reggae singer played a major role in the country’s tourism business. Millions of Americans and Canadians flocked to Negril, Montego Bay and Kingston (Jamaica had a modest tourist income before Marley, but not as astounding as after him), to visit the land of the famous Rasta. Although Jamaica, unlike Israel and India, couldn’t lure visitors through the power of movies and books, it’s able to get its share, thanks to the immortal Bob Marley, whose musical legacy might last for many years to come.

And Ethiopia has her athletes, too! They have been a great source of conduit by bringing the face of the nation to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, however, the fame and glory of these amazing athletes have never been utilized or commercialized. Take Greece, for example, with the name of the great Pheidippides (the runner who went from Marathon to Athens to tell the victory over the Persians), making him a tourist attraction for over a century. Ever since time immemorial, the Greeks capitalized on his name and brought huge revenues attained from solely tourism. As a matter of fact in the Olympic game, a long-distance foot race called “Marathon” was first included in the program at Athens in 1896. Greek officials worked hard to convince the Olympic governing body for the inclusion of the game, capitalizing on the Pheidippides history and its potential to generate tourism. Equally, in every victory Ethiopians achieve in the marathon and other races, they could emulate the Greeks to attract tourists. Abebe Bikila could be given a big statue; I bet you athletes of the world (invite Sports Illustrated to write a piece, or other magazines for viewing) would flock to see his sculpture.

Ethiopia also has the potential to produce in the coming decades, great movies, great books and great stars. Its sons and daughters are intelligent and dynamic, ready to play their part in the international arena, just like everyone else. In the meantime, Ethiopia could take its cues from Kenya, its southern neighbor, with tremendous experience in tourism. The future holds an amazing bonanza in the business of tourism for Africa. Japan has astoundingly recovered from its lethargy of the last decade and is now returning to the world’s arena as a major player once again. India’s economy is growing by leaps and bounds, such that even New Delhi has reached rapprochement with Islamabad (Ethiopia and Eritrea can also take cues from these once mortal enemies). Additionally the Russian economy, that was questionable a few years back, is waving a brilliant flag of power, announcing the advent of its strength to its neighbors and friends. And the people of these countries, like Europeans, Americans and the Japanese, will be faithful travelers, flooding African airports and asking for Enjierra!  (Ethiopian restaurants are successful in America with largely non-Ethiopians as their major customers.)

And now the question is: Will Ethiopia be ready?

Can Ethiopia turn the Lake Langano area into a resort haven, a place where you want to come back again and again? Can it build casinos (invite Mr. Al Amudi to jump into the game, and bring Japanese investors as well as the Sheiks and the Sultans of the region), and turn the Langano area into a place of exemption, rescue, escape and joy? Can Ethiopia emulate Vegas, where cocktail waitresses dressed in Roman togas steal the hearts of million dollars spending oil tycoons with a simple smile? And what country have you gone to on planet Earth to find more beautiful women with an inimitable hospitality than the Ethiopian princesses?

Can Ethiopia find private investors to build a first class zoo, as an attraction for the swelling tourist trade?  As a matter of fact, if smartly packaged and intelligently drafted, donor countries could be called upon to help build the attraction centers, since this has a direct impact on the economy of the country.

Is this unrealistic?

For the pessimist, Japan could have decayed by now and Russia would have been left in the dust heap of history. For the pessimist, after the Second World War, Germany, Italy and Japan would have vanished into thin air, never to be heard from again. For the pessimist, China’s emergence as a mammoth economic power had no chance to succeed.

I am an optimist.

And now I want to say to Mr. Sufian:  A million kudos to you, sir; I believe it’s possible that Ethiopia can be a middle income nation within the next two decades.

I wish you and Ethiopia all the best.