Decades-long Sino-Tanzanian cooperation embodies Bandung spirit

When countries from Africa and Asia mark the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference later this month, Tanzania has more to celebrate the golden jubilee of the trans-continental cooperation.

Though it was not at Bandung between April 18 and 24 of 1955, this east African country has since benefited a great deal from the cooperation roadmap worked out in the Indonesian historic city.

The cooperation between China and Tanzania across the Asian and African continents is best described by Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mkapa as "a friend indeed is a friend in need."

For the past four decades, Tanzania has been benefiting from the Bandung principles of mutual trust and mutual benefit in a concrete Sino-Tanzanian cooperation, apart from cooperation with other Asian countries like India, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

As the number one recipient of China's aid to Africa, Tanzania has got more than 100 all-in-one cooperation projects and programs completed or being materialized with Chinese aid totaling more than 2 billion US dollars since the early 1960s.

The aid from China, coming at times when Tanzania needed it most, have come not only in cash and kind, but in human resource as well.

The China-aided TAZARA (Tanzania-Zambia Railway) and SINOTASHIP (Chinese-Tanzanian Joint Shipping Company) have provided Tanzania with the necessary means to reach out for trade and cooperation over land and sea with Asia and elsewhere.

The Mubarali Rice Farm, Mahonda Sugar Cane Factory, Friendship Textile Mills and China Sisal Farm have offered the agricultural country with an Asian insight and how-to on planting, harvesting and cashing in both grain and cash crops.

The Chalinze and Dodoma water projects have not only rendered drinking water supplies to central Tanzania but also an irrigation capability in the area.

Apart from the 41 Chinese-funded enterprises in Tanzania that specialize in cooperation-oriented projects and programs, there are also 85 enterprises so far registered in Tanzania with Chinese investment for labor contracts and services, including eight full- fledged Sino-Tanzanian joint ventures.

Since 1968, about 1,000 Chinese doctors and nurses have come to Tanzania in 18 rotating batches to provide health care services not only to urban dwellers but to rural residents in out-of-reach areas as well.

China has also sent herbal medicine specialists to help find a cure to the country's number one epidemic of HIV/AIDS. The Sino- Tanzanian cooperative research on HIV/AIDS cures dates back to 1987, with Chinese medical specialists working in Tanzania for six rotating batches by now.

China is also cooperating with Tanzania in producing anti- malaria drugs by using herbal extracts. Malaria is the other killer disease in the country.

Bilateral trade volume has increased from tens of thousands of US dollars in 1965, when the two countries signed their trade pact to 50 million dollars in 1973, to 245 million dollars in goods and services in 2004.

The trade of goods and services has run the complementary gamut of the two countries, bridging up the gap between what they have and what they lack.

While China has been benefiting from its fraternity with Tanzania on international arena, Tanzania on its part has been benefiting from the experience and lessons of China's market economy reforms.

While joining other Asian and African countries in the celebration the 50th anniversary of the Bandung conference, officials from Tanzania's foreign affairs and trade ministries expressed the belief that China's proposal of forging a new strategic partnership between Asia and Africa based on the Bandung spirit and principles is in the very interest of not only Tanzania but also other countries on these two continents.