SOUNDS OF DJEMBE drums and flute drift along a corridor in the rundown Huizhou Building in Guangzhou. In an office filled with mirrored handbags and glittering high-heel shoes, Senagalese trader Seringe Bamba Fall works at his desk.
'Africa is life, is love,' Fall says, his melodious voice filling the room. 'Africa is good for China, good for the Chinese people.'
The tall, lanky Senegalese, who arrived in the Guangdong provincial capital three years ago, is part of a growing Afro-Arabian community in the Pearl River Delta region. Almost 10,000 African traders now call Guangzhou home, most concentrated in a bustling enclave between Yuexiu Park and Xiaobei Road.
Here, tall dark-skinned men, women in colourful headscarves and white-robed Muslims with flowing beards make their way along lanes lined with shipping offices and shops displaying French and Arabic signs. Many head across a U-shaped pedestrian bridge to Tianxiu Building. The 30-storey, salmon-and-teal complex is the heart of African trade on the mainland.
Tianxiu was just another office complex when a few Malian and Guinean traders first set up shop 15 years ago. But as the mainland, especially the Pearl River delta, established itself as the world's workshop, importers based in Dubai and Bangkok began moving to Guangzhou to deal directly with manufacturers. China's entry to the World Trade Organisation further fuelled the move.
Festo Sengabo, a dignified 42-year-old in thick-rimmed glasses, plaid shirt and navy sweater, runs a brisk business sourcing building materials for reconstruction in his native Rwanda. He moved from Dubai two years ago to cut out middlemen, but says being closer to his suppliers hasn't made his life much easier.