HARARE -- Africa stands to benefit from its deepening ties with China but the continent has to enhance their capacities to match the Chinese economic growth, said a study on the impact of China on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), released on Tuesday.

The study by researchers from the universities of Nairobi, Cape Town and Sussex said that African economies have a real chance of benefiting from their economic links with China as long as they boost their own capacities to match Chinese demands.

SSA exports to China as a proportion of trade with industrialized countries have grown from 0.43 percent in 1990 to 8. 96 percent in 2004, and these are set to expand as a Chinese- driven commodity price boom takes the world by storm.

The most significant opportunity opened-up to SSA by China's rapid growth is the enhanced incentives which rising demand and prices provide to commodity producing countries, the researchers said.

Many African economies, including most members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have rich primary product resources, but one of the challenges facing Africa will be to develop the supply in-elasticities required to take advantage of raised global demand and prices, they said.

This may require a combination of inputs, including enhanced infrastructure, targeted wooing of selected global resource- producing firms and the development of training and research and technology organizations in the respective national systems of innovation, noted the researchers.

African countries will have to come up with clear strategies on how to manage the exploitation of their natural resources to ensure that the fruits can be drawn down over time, rather than at a single point in time.