Chinese businesses move to informal areas

NAMIBIA has been a magnet for Chinese immigrants in recent years, with many of them coming to set up small family businesses in places such as the CBD as well as the well known Chinatown in Windhoek’s Northern Industrial area.

Recently, these Chinese small business owners have seen opportunities in informal areas like Havanna, Goreangab, Okuryangava and others where they have set up shop.

For some locals such as Saima Shikongo who sells cooked meat (kapana) next to the Chinese shop in Havana, these shops have removed the trouble of them going far to get some items.

She said some items needed to run her business as well as needed for household purposes are now available close by as the China shops are just a few minutes’ walk away.

“They (Chinese shops) are here to save us from going far to get items such as lamps and plates,” she said, adding that she does not feel competition from the Chinese.

But another vendor, Kambakutu Jona who sells items such as sunglasses and combs that he has been buying from Chinatown for the past four years, said the mushrooming of Chinese shops in the informal areas is killing his business and that of his colleagues.

“People are no longer buying from us. They would rather go buy at a lower price in the China shop,” he said, adding that business had gone down for him.

According to Jona, he has no choice but to relocate his trading spot and try selling his wares in other areas of the settlement, at times on credit to attract customers.

“Sometimes people pay, sometimes they do not want to settle their debts with me,” he said.

In the past, Chinese shops in Katutura were only found at small and big shopping complexes but not in the informal areas.

In 2008, Andrew Niikondo of the public management department at the Polytechnic of Namibia, conducted a study with fellow lecturer Johan Coetzee and
produced a report on how Chinese businesses ‘kill’ local retail outlets.

In the report, Niikondo said Namibians regard Chinese business and construction companies in the country as “unacceptable” and blamed government for not controlling the influx of Chinese business people, who “penetrate every inch of the country” and “squeeze” the owners of small shops, depriving them the chance of growing their business.

The report said some respondents of the survey felt that the quality of Chinese products was mostly poor and often fakes of international brands, and that Chinese shops had cheaper prices and thus “killed Namibian retail businesses”.

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