BUSINESS:-Made In China (MIC) 2025)* - Africa's Miss-Step On China

As a trader dealing heavily in imports from China, it is important that Uganda and Ugandans understand the Made in China (MIC) 2025 Master strategy and how to respond to its aggression. 

MIC 2025 is a national strategic plan and industrial policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to further develop the manufacturing sector of China as issued by CCP general secretary Xi Jinping and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's cabinet in May 2015.

As part of their 13th and 14th five-year plans, China is moving away from being the "world's factory"—a producer of cheap low-tech goods facilitated by lower labour costs and supply chain advantages. The Chinese industrial policy aims to upgrade the manufacturing capabilities of Chinese industries, growing from labor-intensive workshops into a more technology-intensive powerhouse with more value added.

Since 2018, following a backlash from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, the phrase "MIC 2025" has been de-emphasized in government and other official communications, while the program remains in place. The Chinese government continues to invest heavily in identified technologies, taking over off shore industrial parks, mining, construction, engineering and 70% market spaces. 

In 2018, the Chinese government committed to investing roughly US$300 billion into achieving the industrial plan. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least an additional $1.4 trillion was also invested into MIC 2025 initiatives.

THE AFRICAN MISS-STEP RESPONSE CHINA ECONOMIC TAKE-OVER. 

As opposed to the previous china towns that were named based on a concentration of Chinese and other Asian decendants in a foreign land known for exhibiting their tradition. Today China towns are strategic drivers of the China - to - dominate strategy otherwise called MIC2025. 

African countries have miss-stepped on this economic aggression and the ankle will hurt in the near future. The china town General Store in Uganda has generated a lot of excitement and mixed reactions for many Ugandans. 

While it comes in with a price under-cut strategy pulling masses of excitement from some last mile traders, hawkers and consumers. It is a miss-step to the manufacturing, mining, engineering and value addition ambitions of Uganda, Ugandans and threatens the tax base of this country. 

The China Town General Store has a wide range of products from needles, threads, buttons, furniture, steel & metal products, plastics, cloth, leather and ceramics among others. 

This means over 1 million local businesses are now under one roof - The China General Store. While owners of this store can guarantee Government tax revenue from their mass imports, they deny government mass revenue allotted from the trading licences paid by the local traders who will in the short and mid-run lose their shops. 

Secondly, the likes of Nice House of Plastics, Road side Metal fabricators / weilders, furniture shops, Ugandan rice fields, Coffee etc will be run down. 

The question is, who is winning in this Global Economic Strategic by China? 

How can  individual traders or manufacturers out compete an aggressive government funded strategy by a country like China? 

If the US and Europe are sneezing because of the MIC2025 strategy by China, do African countries have a chance?

By: Joshua Mawerere, Chairman, Youth Traders, KACITA Uganda & A Consultant At  Vitendo Global Consultants.