Chinese competition sparks tension among Benin traders

FE Team | Published: September 26, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

COTONOU, Sept 25 (AFP): Standing in front of the Great Wall of China restaurant, Benin trader Diane is bitter at what she sees as unfair competition from the flood of Chinese imports.
"The Chinese copy everything and sell their counterfeits with impunity, ruining everything for us," rails the loincloth seller in the small west African country.
"Cotonou will soon be completely in the hands of the Chinese and then all of Benin!" insists Diane, who imports the loincloths she sells at the city's Dantokpa market from the Netherlands.
"That's the price to pay for the Palace of Congresses, the construction of a new foreign ministry building and digitalisation of our telephone network," notes Martin, another trader.
He charges the government has given Chinese traders preferential treatment, such as simplified procedures to obtain visas and set up businesses.
Present in Benin for around three decades, the Chinese community has boomed in the past few years. Numbering only some 700 at the beginning of the 1980s, the Chinese grew to around 1,000 in 2000 and total more than 2,700 today.
Another trader, Jocelyne Pognon, said she had no other choice but to close up shop after being undercut by Chinese products.
While the flood of low-priced Chinese imports is making life difficult for some traders, it is proving a boon for those selling the goods and the consumers buying them.
"At least now we can buy cloth or porcelain at a low price. Before it was impossible," says Christiane Zocli before her display of loincloths.
"Before I was at home. I began with 25 euros (35 dollars) and in seven months I have stock on display worth at least 100 euros," she enthuses.
One Chinese trader downplays the friction with his Beninese counterparts.
"We are relatively well received in this country, more so our goods because of their price," says Lee Wong, who sells porcelain at the Dantokpa market. "Yes, it's true that there is friction more and more often with our local counterparts who feel we are taking over a large part of their market, but we always work it out."
In 2004 Benin imported slightly over 300 million dollars' worth of goods from China, while exporting products worth 80 million dollars, making China the second-largest supplier and top buyer of goods for the small west African country.