Forum: China’s engagement in Africa: opportunities and challenges for Africa

Abstract

From being one of the largest recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) after its opening up in the late 1970s by attracting foreign investors to contribute to its economic take-off first in its southern region of Guangdong and later in its inland provinces, China has become FDI provider to other countries; particularly in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. But China’s overseas expansion has been developed through its government’s policies in the late 1990s to motivate Chinese state and more and more private companies to go abroad in order to secure resources, gain overseas markets to sell ‘made in China’ products and contribute to China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI). In its relations with Africa, the ‘go out’ policy in the late 1990s, the establishment of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, the release of a white paper in 2006 about China’s engagement in Africa show China’s interests to strengthen its cooperation with African countries.