Interview: China sets up example for Africans to create miracle through self-reliance

Mutsvangwa said a lot of growth was made by the Chinese investing in their country. They have become very big consumers and most of the top 500 companies in the world are now investing in China, he said. "China's consumption power is also growing and as the middle class grows, domestic consumption increases."

"The notion that China manufactures for the world, that they are destitute and poor at home, is being disproved completely. They are becoming consumers in their own right, which are attracting some of the best companies in the whole world. So, it is a massive transformation of society which I think in human history has never happened to so many people at such a pace in a short period of time."

China was the biggest consumer of mobile phones, the internet and lately, the car. It also produces cheap computers and televisions for the export market, he said.

Mutsvangwa said China wanted perfection in whatever it did. "There is very much an effort to open up and say whatever is happening in the world let it be done in China and may it be done better."

He also said the mainstay of Chinese tourism were the Chinese people who visited various places of interest as they traced their history in their own country.

The lesson which China has given to Africa is one of hope, Mutsvangwa said. "The main gift which China has given to Africa is one of hope that you are not fated to be underdeveloped, that underdevelopment is not the lot of the Third World. They have shown that the future of any people depends on those people and not on charity," he said.