The great African shmoozefest

Wen Jiabao on a building in Cape Town

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is in Africa on a seven nation tour, visiting Egypt, Ghana, Congo, Tanzania, Senegal, Angola and South Africa.

Xinhua is reporting all the usual sentiments about friendly ties and peaceful development etc. The press coverage in your correspondent’s home country of South Africa was muted: the main concern was China’s commitment to limit textile sales to South Africa, where cut rate Chinese clothing has decimated the local business.

But there are plenty of China-related opportunities for African businesses too, and not just in natural resources sectors.

One example: the image above for example, shows a building in Cape Town draped with a banner welcoming Wen Jiabao to South Africa. At the bottom of the banner is the logo of MIH, a part of Naspers, the South African media company that is one of the largest but least known foreign investors in Chinese media. MIH / Naspers has a stake of about 10% in Beijing Media Group, the ‘advertising arm’ of the group that publishes Beijing Youth Daily. Naspers also owns a stake in Tencent, the company behind the popular Chinese instant messaging platform QQ.