We, Camco Group, headquartered at the capital city Lusaka of Zambia and supported by nine subsidiary companies in Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Cameroon and Shanghai in China, have achieved a great progress and created matured distributing channels and marketing modes with a professional maintenance and aftersales service network after 15 years’ effort made by the whole Camco staff since the foundation in Zambia in 1998. We have over 600 Chinese and foreign employees who have made a lot of contributions to the local economic development, and meanwhile we have constituted a series of management rules and an enterprise culture suitable for the situation in Africa.
The Group is mainly engaged in the import and distribution of agricultural and engineering machines, chain department stores, building and real estate development. Accumulatively we have invested 15 million US dollars in Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Cameroon, obtained 6 investment approvals, and realized 25 million US dollars of annual sales volume. Camco is one of the largest Chinese trade companies in Zambia now, and Budget Stores Limited is the sole Chinese department store with the trade approval in Zambia.
We have created a long and friendly cooperation relationship with over 30 powerful manufacturers in China, as more than 80% of the goods are purchased from China. In the future, the group will stand on and the African market and bring the African customers with famous and high quality products from China, and try all to become a bridge between China and Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Cameroon in agricultural and engineering machines, light industrial store products, and building materials.
We have been engaged in the mechanical business for 15 years since 1998. Now the business scale of mechanical devices is enlarged by the following branches:
Registered on June 16th, 1998, headquartered at the capital city Lusaka of Zambia, supported by branch companies in Kitwe, Choma, Kapiri and Chipata, etc, and holding a sales network with 32 distributors all over the country as one of the largest agricultural, building and engineering machine suppliers in Zambia.
Registered in June, 2001 and headquartered at the commercial center Blantyre with a branch company in the capital city Lilongwe.
Registered in August, 2012 and headquartered at the capital city Nairobi.
Registered in September, 2013 and headquartered at the largest commercial city Douala.
Registered on October 18th, 2005 at Pudong District of Shanghai and mainly engaged in the export of mechanical devices and building materials.
To provide the client with reasonably priced and high quality mechanical devices,To develop the enterprise comprehensively and reward employees and shareholders with opportunities to realize their targets by the profit gained, and satisfy each client with outstanding products and the best service to win their permanent trust and support.
Our business is mainly involved in devices for agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery and building, and concretely consisting of the import, wholesale, retail and aftersales service of agricultural machines, irrigating machines, agricultural product processing machines, animal husbandry machines, engineering machines, building machines, power generating units and solar devices. Our main market targets are: owners of medium and small farms, peasants, agricultural product processing enterprises, building enterprises and government agencies.
Our client groups mainly cover:
(1) We sell 16 classes, over 100 kinds and nearly 300 types of devices to satisfy different application demands;
(2) We choose the most outstanding suppliers to ensure the reliable quality;
(3) Products are reasonably priced and competitive;
(4) We have a purchase network supported by main manufacturers in China;
(5) We have a wide sales network to make the client convenient for buying our products;
(6) We have various producing and maintaining devices to solve any difficulties in maintenance;
(7) We can provide the favorable aftersales service including installation, debugging and maintenance;
(8) We have 14 years of experience in operation and management in Zambia, and are familiar with the local commerce.
We cooperate with the most outstanding manufacturers so that our client can purchase high quality products. We have created a favorable supply chain with major agricultural, building and engineering machine manufacturers in China, and our products represent the topmost level all over China.
A customer may worry about the aftersales service and supply of parts for buying a machine from China, while we are equipped by large and advanced lathes, drills, millers and hydraulic presses to support the maintenance and make the consumer feel safe in buying and aftersales service; we have stored enough and complete types of parts so that the customer’s machine can be maintained timely; we have also organized a professional aftersales team with professional technicians from the local district and China so that we can rapidly and exactly solve any problem for the customer. We can provide the customer with device installation and maintenance to promote the production, and we can also provide technical support and training.
The company, found at the capital city Lusaka of Zambia in April and awarded the investment approval from the local government in October, 2004, is a Chinese light industry department store trade project with the largest investment and the sole investment approval in Zambia. After fourteen years of development, twenty branch stores are opened in nine provinces of Zambia, and the store company has become the second largest chain department store company selling non-food products on a sales network all over Zambia.
According to tenet of “to provide products with the best performance-cost ratio, satisfy the demand for top and common consumers, and improve the living quality of local people”, we mainly sell household electric appliances, furniture, kitchen utensils and appliances, clothes, shoes, hats, bed clothes, toys, stationery, metal miscellaneous and tools, etc. We provide a favorable and popular consumption place to satisfy the local people’s demand for the improving living quality.
Following the operation guideline of “to reinforce the credibility by quality and win customers by price”, we keep operating by the standardized management principle to ensure the market, product and team advantages are optimized. We not only purchase high quality products from China but also cooperate with local outstanding suppliers to support their development, reduce the cost and realize the win-win target.
With the company progress, we have gradually formed a management team made up by both Chinese and Zambian employees and integrated with both China and Zambia cultures, and trained a lot of managers who have advanced management thoughts and are familiar with the local culture. As a foreign-funded enterprise, we also employ local persons. Up to now, we have nearly 30 Chinese employees and 300 local employees, and contributed a lot to the local employment.
In the future three years, we will open new chain stores in the second tier cities of Zambia, and make contribution to improve the local people’s material life.
(1) We sell various types of product to satisfy 80% of the demand in most families;
(2) We choose outstanding suppliers and actualize the perfect purchase flow to ensure the reliable quality. We strictly perform the procedures in product choosing, ordering, transporting, checking, accepting and distributing;
(3) Our products are reasonably priced and competitive; they may not be the cheapest but must be in the highest performance-cost ratio;
(4) We have a purchase network supported by major manufacturers in China and in the local district;
(5) We mainly depend on China suppliers, we purchase high quality and inexpensive products and share the improved quality and price advantage with the consumer;
(6) We have a wide sales network so that the customer can buy our products conveniently;
(7) We can provide the favorable aftersales service;
(8) We have 14 years of experience in operation and management in Zambia, and are familiar with the local commerce;
(9) We always attach importance to our reputation, and maintain a favorable cooperative relationship with the bank;
The company mainly sells household electrical appliances, furniture, household articles, kitchen utensils and appliances, clothes, shoes and hats, bed clothes, toys, stationary, metal miscellaneous and tools, etc.We cooperate with outstanding manufacturers so that the customer can buy outstanding products. We have a perfect supply chain supported by major suppliers in China and in the local district.
We have upgraded the design and material to improve the performance and adaptability to Africa market.
We stick to the tenet of “customer first” and solve problems for the customer timely and responsibly;
1、We provide each household electric product with 12 months of guaranteed repair, and can provide the user with maintenance service;
2、We are advantageous in aftersales service that we have a professional aftersales service team made up by local and Chinese technicians who can solve the customer’s problem rapidly and exactly;
3、We have enough and complete types of parts so that maintenance and repair can be done for the customer timely.
Camland Construction Ltd., founded in August, 2008 as a subsidiary limited company of Camco Group, is mainly engaged in the distribution of civil buildings and building materials including the construction of residential buildings, commercial buildings and office buildings, etc. The company has the investment approval issued by Zambia Investment Bureau and the Grade III certificate of qualification for construction issued by the national construction department.
The GDP of Zambia was increased by 5% above annually in the past 8 years, and the economy was highly developed by the major industries including mines, energies and agriculture, etc. With the economic progress, people’s income is gradually increased, it appears a great demand for governmental projects and civil buildings, and the construction market has a wide prospect.
Chinese companies are the main force in the construction market of Zambia, most of the governmental projects including schools, roads, bridges and commercial buildings as well as civil buildings are contracted by Chinese companies. Camco Construction Ltd. was founded on such background, and the target of Camco Group is to make Camland Construction become one of the three major branch companies within 3 years.
Early in the beginning after the company was founded, we have made the guideline of “develop by quality”, introduced new building materials, and invested a lot in the equipment. Now, the company has nearly 200 employees and various building machines including heavy trucks, light trucks, pick-ups, concrete mixers and automatic brick makers, etc, and we can contract the construction for any building with 12 floors at most.
“Quality goes first with the fundamental importance in the long-term development plan”, we pursue after and promise providing outstanding buildings for the client.
Chinese International School in Zambia was jointly established by seven Chinese entrepreneurs in Zambia under the strong support of NOCFL and the Chinese Embassy in Zambia in 2009.
On Oct. 28, 2009, the school held the opening ceremony, which marks the formal foundation of the first Chinese international school featured by Chinese education. At the beginning, the school constructed Chinese Teaching Department and TCSL Department to "benefit ethnic Chinese and disseminate Chinese culture", with Chinese children and foreign Chinese learners as the primary teaching objects.
Since 2012, as local demand for China-Zambia exchange and Chinese learning increases, the school board has established the Early Childhood Department and Primary Teaching Department of Chinese International School that develop till now. This move fills the blank of Chinese education in Zambia and helps the school education cover from ethnic Chinese to non-ethnic Chinese and from children to adult, laying an economic foundation for the future development of the school and achieving good social benefit.
Located at the inland plateau of south central Africa, Zambia borders on Angola, Tanzania and Congo (Kinshasa). With pleasant climate, the people there are simple and honest. It is well-known in the world for its abundant copper ore and the Victoria Falls and famous in China for the "Tanzania-Zambia Railway".
Chinese International School in Zambia lies in the downtown area of the capital "Lusaka", a political, economic, cultural and traffic center of Zambia, with convenient traffic conditions and pleasant environment.
For the purpose of "inheriting Chinese culture, cultivating social elite and jointly building friendship bridge", the school creates a school-running idea and teaching method integrating Chinese, African and western culture and traditional education feature by combining local education outline and actual social demand, with Early Childhood Department, Primary Teaching Department, Chinese Department and TCSL Department as teaching units and “Love to Learn, Learn to Love”, “Learn Chinese, Double Your World” as the teaching tenet.
In terms of course design, on the basis of respecting for local custom and students' desire and promoting culture exchange between the two countries, the school offers traditional music, African dance and Chinese martial arts among others; in terms of festival activities, supplemented by western festivals, it focuses on the major traditional festivals of Africa (Zambia) and China and teaches the cultural connotation of each nationality through lively activities .
Meanwhile, in order to expand cultural exchange and meet the Chinese practicality demand, the school successfully carried out language training cooperative project with the president office, bank, army and China-invested enterprise successively by implementing the teaching policy of "Students Come In and Teachers Go Out" , and established teaching classes (language class) in local French school and community international school, which achieved good learning effect.
（1）Since its foundation in 2009, the school has been recognized by all sectors of Zambian society as well as ethnic Chinese and overseas Chinese step by step by virtue of its solid and serious basic subject teaching and language teaching, and received high praise from the embassy in Zambia and successive ambassadors in developing China-Zambia friendship and disseminating Chinese culture.
In Oct. 2010, at the first school anniversary, more than 150 persons were present, including Li Qiangmin, the then Chinese ambassador in Zambia, and his wife, Xin Yinda, vice minister of the Ministry of Education of Zambia, staff at the political office and business office of the embassy, teaching volunteers and local students. Mr. Li Qiangmin spoke highly of the ethnic Chinese in Zambia for their patriotism and raising money to set up new schools, and made comments about the unfavorable conditions like arduous environment, deficiency of fund and inadequate faculty, smooth lessons giving and acquired good social benefit. The vice minister of the Ministry of Education of Zambia appreciated China for its assistance and cooperation in education field and said Zambia welcomed and supported the operation and development of the school.
In Aug. 2011, Zhou Yuxiao, the then Chinese ambassador in Zambia inspected the construction of the school and visited the Chinese teaching volunteers assigned by the NOCFL. Ambassador Zhou proactively appraised the significant contribution in carrying forward culture and popularizing Chinese education, and expressed thanks for the brand new platform provided by the school for Zambian people to know Chinese history, culture and social life.
In Nov. 2014, Yang Youming, Chinese ambassador in Zambia, and his wife, were invited to watch the stage play "Sleeping Beauty" directed and acted by the teachers and students of the school. After the performance ended, ambassador Yang highly praised the play in terms of its originality, specialty and skillful integration of Chinese elements. The performance was very successful. In addition, he also gave an active comment on the significant contribution made by Chinese International School in carrying forward Chinese culture, promoting Chinese education and facilitating the cultural exchange between the two countries.
As the school develops in order, it receives more and more active feedbacks from the students, their parents and the cooperative organizations, and the influence of the school expands gradually in Zambia. Different from other acts of government or the China-Zambia contact in business field, the Chinese language school working hard in education field is gradually concerned by various media in the course of communication between China and Zambia; at the same time, it will have more opportunities to become the "cultural envoy" of various kinds of organization activities.
In Dec. 2013, Zhou Yuxiao, the then ambassador, and Liu Xiaoyan, current present, were invited by ZNBC to join in the live broadcast program broadcasting themed with "Chinese language in Zambia";
In 2014, BBC TV station came to the school to interview the Chinese language teaching in Early Childhood Department and Primary Teaching Department;
between 2013 and 2014, the primary students of the school were invited to take part in such activities as "Temple Fair in Spring Festival", "Chinese Martial Arts Association Foundation Ceremony in Zambia" and "Business Reception for China-Zambia Economic Cooperation Zone of the Ministry of Commerce";
From 2012 to now, local mainstream media including ZNBC and MUVI TV station as well as domestic media like Tencent and Chinese media The Overseas Weekly reported the various practical activities organized and jointed by the school, such as visiting fire fighting forces, airport, production enterprises, TV station, farm; visiting orphanage; China-Africa traditional festival activities, graduation ceremony, martial arts performance and sports meeting.。In Apr. 2015, in order to enhance China-Zambia exchange and increase cultural experience, the school plans to organize Zambian middle and primary students to have a 10-day "Beijing Culture Experience Tour". Relevant work is under preparation.
As a bridge between Chinese and Zambian civilization and a platform for China-Africa cultural exchange, the Chinese International School is being supervised and examined by all walks of life in these practical activities and spreading peace and building friendship in the process of communicating with the functional government departments and enterprise units.
rom its foundation to now, the school always adheres to the basic education principle of "providing education for all people without discrimination", that is to say, it treats students equally, whatever their race, nationality and belief. The target and duty of the school teaching is to cultivate long life learner, open minded world citizen and effective communicator.
The education and teaching work of the Chinese International School in Zambia is primarily undertaken by two functional organizations, i.e. international school and language center. The school totals 28 persons, including 24 full-time Chinese and Zambian teachers (assistants) and 4 long-term part-time teachers.In particular:
The school provides 28 teachers (assistants) for the Early Childhood Department and Primary Teaching Department.
There are 3 Chinese teachers in the TCSL Department and Chinese Teaching Department of the Language Center.
By the hard work of all teachers and students in recent years, the Early Childhood Department and Primary Teaching Department have had 10 classes with more than 180 full-time students, and it is expected to increase to more than 200 students in early 2015. In Nov. 2013, the school organized the first YCT Exam grade I, in which 12 students participated and 9 of them passed.
The Language Center now has 2 Chinese classes, 2 TCSL elementary classes and 2 off-campus teaching cooperative projects. During 2012-2014, the school trained more than 200 language students per year on average.
In 2013, all of the 4 students who took part in the HSK grade II and IV passed the exam;
in 2014, 25 students registered for the HSK I exam and 11 of them took part in the exam as of Dec. 1 and passed.
As the nation and people across the world increasingly desire to get to know China and communicate with China and the Chinese and overseas Chinese have more generations abroad, Chinese and its learning are receiving wide attention as an entry point and an inheritance key, which should first be cherished by our Chinese education workers.
In African continent in the southern hemisphere, Zambia, located south central Africa, communicates with China for a long time. Different from western developed countries, African nations see their own future in developing in China and doing business with China. Under this backdrop, the supporting demand of the African countries including Zambian people for Chinese language study is produced not because of the interest of a few culture hunters or a required culture of the offspring of the immigration wave, but because it is a practical survival skill and a long-term education investment. We can say that only if Africa is strategically important to China, the influence of China on various aspects of Africa as well as the demand of Africa for Chinese will continue.
Driven by this sustainable, foreseeable and increasing demand, as the only education platform characterized by Chinese teaching in Zambia, it is a very rare development opportunity in front of us.
In the face of such opportunity, in order to seize it, we decide to continue to overcome difficulties, play the subjective initiative and ceaselessly meet challenges. In the meantime, as the school is in its preliminary development stage, we still need support at different levels and from all walks of life. At the present stage, the following problems should be primarily considered: In the first place, it's talent which is the fundamental productive force. Because of the special geographical relationship, history and custom of Africa-Zambia, its economy develops relatively slowly as a whole, reflected by poor infrastructure and public social conditions, etc. As a result, the school needs to expand the stable and excellent teaching staff on one hand, but it does not have the favorable external conditions for attracting talents on the other hand. In view of the school running policy and concept as well as the particularity of the geographical environment of undeveloped countries, the teaching staff need to objectively have rich teaching experience and high teaching level and subjectively possess practical and industrious working style. We hope the subsequent teaching staff construction may get strong support from the NOCFL, Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and all circles, encourage and recommend proper talents to go to Africa and Chinese International School in Zambia. It is predicted that we will need another 2-3 full-time Chinese teachers (volunteers) and 1 martial art teacher (volunteer) in 3-5 years.
In the second place, it's to speed up launching and enforcing standardized Chinese education. At present, Zambia's Chinese education and teaching still focuses on automated instruction and independent inspection in the aspect of "teaching, learning and examination". It has a certain degree of regionalism, specificity and randomicity from teaching planning, textbook selection and lesson giving to examination. Although this can highlight the advantages of doing the right thing at the right time, based on local conditions and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude in teaching method, it lacks subsequent support force in three aspects in long term: the first one is the high dependency on teachers' personal ability and experience; secondly, with "teaching, learning and examination" running through the language culture learning process, most of the teaching points have no uniform quality requirement and standard tested by long-term practice; thirdly, learning system cannot be migrated and adapt to the requirement of continuing systematic learning due to the frequent flow of students. Therefore, we hope it can join in the standard Chinese education system covering the world and having uniform "teaching, learning and examination" mentoring function.
In the third place, it's the problem of network information technology. Currently, the information equipment of the school needs to upgrade completely and the information resource needs to construct reciprocal and shared channel. As the network Chinese education is popularized energetically, network independent education has begun to replace the traditional concentrated face to face teaching education in developed countries. Network has incomparable advantages such as convenience, rapidness and low cost. While in African countries, like Zambia, since social economic basis does not synchronize with network information technology, the society and the public are limited by the deficiency of economic conditions and equipment in using the internet. In default of comprehensive network education basis and popular network terminal device, the concentrated network education is dominant. By utilizing the network platform of the teaching school, students may share teaching resource across the world, improve learning efficiency and join in network examination. Based on this, complete and upgraded information devices are particularly significant to the strategic development of the school. In consideration of the practical demand, we hope to complete the primary construction of network device by social donation, and to build a long-term channel for information and resource sharing with each teaching school. It is expected that the school needs 30-50 sets of computer and corresponding network facilities in 1-2 years.
Lastly, it's the communication, exchange mechanism of Chinese education work and resource allocation optimization under the standard system. With a view to the common problems and confusions in education and teaching practice and the limitation of resource and assets allocation efficiency, we hope each teaching school can establish a long lasting communication mechanism under the support and organizational management of Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and NOCFL. This kind of communication mechanism not only covers regular exchange on the general trend and huge change of the Chinese education teaching, daily educational theory (method) communication, but also includes the allocation of public resources under uniform dispatch and coordination, such as books, video, cultural transmission materials, hardware assets and material donation. This communication mechanism is able to utilize and extract the essence of the teaching schools across the world to the hilt, optimize resource allocation and help supply each other's needs and even optimize the allocation of teaching resource so as to make contributions in improving the worldwide Chinese education level.
Chinese education still has a way to go towards the world, and we need to do the work in a down-to-earth way. English will not be in such a high place today without several centuries of development, thus we should not seek quick success and instant benefits and it is impossible to reach the goal in one step. Under the complicated Chinese teaching situation, Chinese International School in Zambia will have the firm belief of educating people in a hundred years and the confidence in overcoming difficulties, abandon all short-term interests, never take "work performance and interests" as the driving force of education work or turn Chinese education and cultural inheritance into "short, nearby and fast" projects to ruin the hard-won global Chinese learning opportunity created by the nation after prosperity and several generations of ethnic Chinese's painstaking efforts.We have decided to take root in Africa, and in Zambia to lead an all-around development path with African characteristics in a well-grounded way.
