One of the few economic blocs to show a trade surplus with China in 2005 was the Lusophone bloc – the group of countries consisting of Portugal and its Portuguese-speaking former colonies.
The surplus is largely thanks to the fact that Lusophone states like Angola and Brazil have the raw materials such as oil and meat that China desperately needs to fuel its economic boom and feed its people, while not yet being rich enough themselves to import vast quantities of Chinese computers and electronic goods.
Data released by R?dio Macau shows the value of trade between China and the bloc totalled US$ 12.14 billion in the first seven months of 2005, an increase of 25.9 per cent compared with the same period in 2004. Exports to China totalled US$ 8.78 billion and imports from China US$ 3.36 billion.
Angola and Mozambique represented 93.5 per cent of the total export volume.
The figures exclude the tiny west African island state of S?o Tom? e Principe which has diplomatic links with Taiwan and is therefore boycotted by China. The People's Republic would however dearly like to get its hands on Sao Tome's oil. This country of only 160,000 people has become of vital strategic importance since the discovery of the fossil fuel beneath its territorial waters in the 1990s. Industry experts estimate it could be sitting on four billion barrels of the stuff, and could be extracting 250,000 of them a day within three years.
China has already been courting a range of oil suppliers including Russia's former central Asian territories. But the US also has eyes on Sao Tome's liquid gold. The US Navy has been guarding its fledgling oil fields since 2002.
Angola is sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria, generating US$ 9.7 billion in revenues in 2004. In the first seven months of 2005 Angola's exports to China were valued at US$ 3.58 billion (up 72.2 per cent) and its imports from China stood at US$ 196 million dollars (up 90.2 per cent).
Mozambique has only modest amounts of oil but huge reserves of natural gas, and is expected to become a major producer within a few years.
It exported goods worth US$ 58.5 million to China in the relevant period (up 104.5 per cent) and imported US$ 38.5 million (116.2 per cent more).
Brazil is a major meat and timber supplier to China. Trade between the two went up by 9.6 per cent during the period, with Brazilian exports worth US$ 4.98 billion (up 1.7 per cent) and imports from China worth US$ 2.59 billion (up 28.9 per cent).
Predictably the mother country Portugal, a relatively rich member of the European Union, was the only Lusophone state to show a trade deficit with China, being unable to resist the latter's cheap textiles and consumer goodies. It was also the only bloc member whose exports to China actually fell – down 3.6 per cent to US$ 174.1 million, while its imports from the PRC shot up 60.5 per cent to US$ 508.5 million compared with the same period in 2004.
China began courting Portugal and its former territories more assiduously in 2003 when it set up an organisation under the catchy title 'Forum for the Economic and Commercial Cooperation between China and the Portuguese Speaking Countries'. The inaugural meeting was held in Macau as an obvious bridge between the two blocs. A second gathering of ministers is due later this year.