By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Tsegaye Tadesse
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - China and India's explosion of trade with Africa and greater investment and tolerance by traditional partners have boosted the continent's development climate, Ethiopia's prime minister said on Monday.
"The external environment has been more conducive for African development. We have more latitude to be authors of our own destiny," Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told a meeting of finance and economy ministers in the Ethiopian capital.
China's trade with Africa grew to $40 billion in 2005 compared with $364 million in 1978, while India's rose to $11 billion from $613 million in the same period, according to U.N. and African Union figures.
Analysts say that the influx of money, combined with the no-strings-attached trade and aid policies of both nations, has helped make Western donors who traditionally dictated the terms in Africa ease restrictions on its funding.
"There has been a significant change in attitudes in our traditional developmental partners. There has also been more willingness to tolerate alternative paths of development on the continent," Meles said.
Meles said that India's and China's interest "has created a new source for investment and technology for Africa's economy and a significant jump to foreign direct investment, hence Africa's rapid growth."
The continent grew by an average 5.8 percent in 2007, according to United Nations figures. But trade among African nations has remained low, accounting for only a tenth of total trade on the continent, the African Union said.
Meles was speaking at an African Union-U.N. Economic Commission for Africa conference to tackle development issues like rising food and energy prices and the impact of climate change on the continent's economies.
But Meles said China and India's growing appetite for food, raw materials and commodities was a mixed blessing for Africa.
"These developments have contributed to a steep rise in commodity prices and the associated risks to African economies," he said.
The African Union and United Nations in a statement released on Monday warned: "The rising price of staples has been blamed for social disburbances in at least four African countries in 2008." It listed Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Mauritania.
Abdoulie Janneh, U.N. under-secretary general and executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, said the global problem of high food and oil prices would force the continent to strike a balance between its role as a producer and a consumer.
"The challenge that we face is to ensure that these essential goods are affordable while not stifling the signaling role of prices for increased production," Janneh said.
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