China Study Group of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) held a Roundtable Discussion on the working paper named in search of a demandeur: exploring the contours of a SACU-China trade deal on April 3rd 2006. Mr. ZHOU Yuxiao, charge d'affaires of P.R.China, took part in the roundtable discussion.

Phil Alves, the economist of SAIIA, initially briefed the summary of the working paper. It characterises the backdrop to potential FTA negotiations, analyses the huge opportunities and challenges that will derive from it, and highlights the important dynamics in rapidly developing SACU-China relationship. Alves portrayed a general positive picture on the future of SACU-China FTA negotiation.

Mr. Zhou made the comments while the attendants discussed the influence of SACU-China FTA and the energy cooperation between China and Africa. Zhou emphasized the huge opportunities contained in the China's 1.3 billion populations' consuming market, and reminded that the import commodity value of China will be doubled in the next 5 years. In order to meet the challenges of globalization, all the countries need to positively open the market and raise the production competitiveness rather than take protective measures. SACU and China should speed up the FTA negotiation because it is a win-win situation and benefits both sides in the long run. With regard to the energy cooperation, Zhou pointed out that China's energy consumption does not completely depend on import, let alone import from Africa. China is not only a big energy consuming country but also a big energy producing country and China's TPES (Total Primary Energy Supply) is about at 94%.Therefore, it is groundless to claim that China's energy resource import from Africa will become a threat against the interests of African countries.