Source adapted from CGTN Radio China Africa Talk interview with Namibian Foreign Minister Selma Ashipala-Musavyi
In an interview with CGTN Radio China Africa Talk, Namibia’s Foreign Minister Selma Ashipala-Musavyi positioned the port of Walvis Bay not just as a Namibian asset, but as a logistics gateway for countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia and DR Congo, as China’s new zero-tariff access for 53 African countries begins to reshape export possibilities.
Watch snippet here: https://youtube.com/shorts/RDfs4BhLsYI
“Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, they all use the Walvis Bay Port,” she said, adding that Namibia sees itself as “a gateway to the rest of Africa and to the rest of the world.”
Namibia is marketing itself as part of the solution to a bigger ambition beyond exporting raw materials: using African ports, regional trade corridors and value addition to plug into Chinese and global markets.
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Welcoming the tariff-free arrangement announced through Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the minister said the measure could help accelerate industrialisation.
“We do not want to remain a source of raw materials. We want to add value to our products,” she said, arguing the policy could boost both African manufacturing and trade access to China.
She linked that vision to Namibia’s push to attract Chinese firms to manufacture in the country for access to SADC and the wider continental market. “Namibia is the place to be if you want to access this vast and growing market,” she said.
For Zimbabwe, that resonates with growing debates around whether regional logistics, rather than just mineral extraction, may be part of unlocking benefits from China’s market opening. It also raises a wider question of whether southern African countries can use corridors such as Walvis Bay as collective infrastructure for trade rebalancing.
There was also a notable food trade angle. Namibia is seeking to expand exports to China beyond beef into goat meat, mutton, fisheries, oysters, dates and blueberries.
On meat exports, Ashipala-Musavyi offered a line too good to waste: “Namibian beef and other types of meat can only compete with itself.”
In an era when trade diplomacy is shifting, geography itself may be an economic asset. For Zimbabwe, sitting within corridors linked to Walvis Bay, that may prove more consequential than it first appears.
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