Luo Haoping says Wanbao has set up a vocational school in Mozambique to teach workers rice-growing skills. Wang Chao / China Daily

A Chinese company puts its faith in training as a profit builder

For many Chinese companies in Africa, the term corporate social responsibility is more than giving books to school children or distributing food to the homeless. For these companies, many in labor-intensive industries, providing vocational training is the top priority.

China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), an overseas contractor, was among the first Chinese companies to enter Africa, right after reform and opening up began in 1979. When the company first came here, it realized that a dearth of skilled workers in the continent meant it had to bring in almost all its labor from China, including cement workers and bricklayers.

In the years since, things have improved, but finding skilled labor is still problematic, and CRBC has come up with one way of tackling the problem: allocating a Chinese tutor to every worker it recruits.

This is obviously expensive for the company, but Zhou Yong, general manager of CRBC Mozambique, says it will continue with this approach until it is satisfied that it has a solid pool of labor.

"There are mega projects everywhere here," Zhou says. "It was a stage China went through earlier. In the long run we need to move into more sophisticated areas such as real estate and manufacturing, and hand over these construction jobs to local people. "

As CRBC's workers have benefited from its training, some of the best have left the company to start their own businesses, doing subcontracting work for big construction groups.

"Although it costs money and time to train the locals, we will eventually benefit from the improvement in skills," Zhou says.

Many Africans in cities have made a living and learned skills working for Chinese construction companies, while farmers have benefited from the presence of Chinese agricultural companies that have helped them greatly increase their yields.

In most sub-Saharan countries the warm climate and rich soil make harvesting twice a year possible, but such opportunities have long been missed because of primitive farming methods and a shortage of farming skills.

But that is changing. In the largest agricultural project in Mozambique, Wanbao Group of China is persuading local farmers that by learning from Chinese tutors they can better feed their families and even have produce left over to sell.

Wanbao has rented 30 hectares of land in Gaza province, 200 km north of Mozambique's capital, Maputo. It has designated 10 percent of the land as demonstration fields to teach farmers how to grow rice. This includes lessons on how to plant rice in the correct pattern and how to use fertilizer.

After several months' training, local farmers discovered that Chinese techniques can produce better rice fields.

Luo Haoping, vice-president of Wanbao Mozambique, says average yields can increase from 2 tons to 8 tons a hectare.

The company is also building a vocational school to teach the workers rice-growing skills.

For the company the training is running at a loss, Luo says, "but once the farmers learn how to grow rice properly, we can rent the fields back to them. We move up the industrial chain by processing the grains they sell to us, so eventually we will make money."

Qin Jian, economic counselor of the Chinese embassy in Ethiopia, says Chinese companies have taken a different approach to corporate social responsibility in Africa, and it has proven effective.

"China cannot compare with major Western countries in the amount of aid it gives, but the way Western countries give aid is not particularly successful. In places such as Somalia and Angola there is unrest from time to time, and the economy stagnates.

"The aid they receive usually comes as cash or in the form of other materials, but when that eventually runs out, countries are again reduced to poverty," Qin says.

"Chinese companies teach local people work skills so that they can make a living, so they can have a job and gradually increase their living standard, and eventually the whole country's economy is improved."

Activating cells to make fresh blood is much more sustainable than transfusing blood, he says.

"Training people not only helps them start their own businesses but also improves labor skills and helps bring more foreign investment into the country."

(China Daily European Weekly 03/28/2014 page16)