Africa summit to focus on poverty, trade, China

JOHANNESBURG, May 27 (Reuters) Africa's business and political elite meet next week to find ways to help translate the poorest continent's biggest economic gains for years into creating jobs and ending poverty.

Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa has climbed above 5 per cent a year from barely 3 per cent in 2000, but grinding poverty, disease and hunger persist and jobs are still scarce.

Under the title ''Going for Growth'' the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Africa summit in Cape Town on May 31-June 2 will also discuss a swathe of other issues from stumbling world trade talks to commodity prices, energy security, roads, HIV/AIDS and bird flu, even sport.

''For three years in a row Africa's economy has grown above 5 per cent, but this has been patchy and uneven with some states growing faster than others,'' WEF Africa director Haiko Alfeld told a media briefing.

''Five percent growth is not fast enough to create jobs and end poverty a lot more work still has to be done. We have to see what business can do to help unlock world trade talks.'' He conceded this year's summit may not command as high a profile as last year's conference, which captured world attention riding on the back of an Africa development plan from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Blair challenged the Group of Eight industrialised nations to give more aid and rewrite trade rules to help millions of poor African farmers.

Thousands attended rock concerts around the world to press for action by the G8, which in July agreed at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to more than double aid to Africa by 2010.

''Unlike last year, Africa is not on the G8 agenda for this year when they meet in St Petersburg (Russia), but they could touch on Africa as a growing source of energy,'' Alfeld said.

WORLD TRADE, CHINA IN FOCUS Global trade will feature prominently, with the WEF saying a 1 percent increase in Africa's share of world trade would translate into more than 70 billion dollars yearly in export revenues more than four times what it receives in foreign aid.

World Trade Organization members are struggling to strike a deal by mid-June on basic formulas for cutting farm subsidies and reducing agricultural and manufacturing tariffs after more than four years of talks.

On governance, experts and politicians will grapple with the budding commercial and donor links between Africa and China, which says it wants a ''strategic partnership'' with Africa in trade and aid that appears to have few strings attached.

China's impact on Africa driven by a voracious hunger for oil and other raw materials to power a market-driven economy growing at over 9 per cent per year should provide a lively debate, Alfeld said.

''Discussions will look at the impact of China's new links to Africa and the impact on governance, labour standards and aid conditionalities. Should Africa increasingly be looking at the East for trade and aid and not to the West?,'' Alfeld asked.

Reuters DH RN0433