FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Russian Study Shows China Is Helping Transform Africa into ‘Global Powerhouse’
May 31, 2018 (EIRNS)—China is helping to turn Africa into a “global manufacturing powerhouse,” author Irene Yuan Sun, who wrote The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa in November 2017, is quoted by Sputnik.
Sputnik also cites research from the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), giving very interesting facts on China’s positive role in Africa, pointing out that in 2000, the total trade between China and African states amounted to just $10 billion, but by 2014, China has become Africa’s main trading partner, with trade reaching $220 billion.
In 2017 China provided loans to African countries exceeding $100 billion, principally in Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Angola, Morocco, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad.
The China-Africa Development Fund, known as the CAD Fund, created and financed by the state-owned China Development Bank which became operational in 2007, has been carrying out direct investments in Africa through co-financing Chinese and foreign company projects on the African continent. The CAD Fund provides one-third of the financing required for a project, acting as a passive investor. It has invested about $3.2 billion in 91 projects in 36 African states.
Production related to the projects CAD has supported include the annual production in 2017 of 11,000 trucks, 300,000 air conditioners, 540,000 refrigerators, 390,000 TV sets, and 1.6 million tons of cement within the framework of the CAD Fund’s initiatives.
The CAD Fund invests in energy and infrastructure projects, industrial production, extraction and processing of natural resources, and agriculture.
Over the last decade China took part in the construction of more than 100 industrial zones, 40% of which have already become operational; 5,756 km of railways; 4,335 km of motorways; nine ports; 14 airports; 34 power stations; as well as 10 large and about 1,000 small hydroelectric power stations which it participated in by the end of 2016.
