This week saw the second China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, held in Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan province. As we’ve covered over the last few years, the city is rapidly emerging as a hub of Africa-China trade. It houses a new cocoa trading facility and is a destination for other African agricultural commodities. As an estimated $16 billion in deals were being signed, African commodities like pepper and butter sold ...
Category: Special Economic Zones
China’s Ambassador to Uganda Wants to Show a Different Side of Chinese Labor Relations in Africa
China's recently-arrived ambassador to Uganda, Zhang Lizhong, travelled to the central city of Kapeeka on Sunday to visit factories in the Liaoshen Industrial Park in what appears to be an effort, in part, to convey an alternative narrative to the one that's become popular ...
A New Chinese-Built Road in Nigeria Highlights Why Infrastructure is So Important For Local People and, More Importantly, Politicians
Both truckers and workers are celebrating the opening of a new, modern road that leads to the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade zone in western Nigeria. The recently opened road has dramatically improved transport times for cargo and made it much easier for thousands of workers to get to ...
Rise of Special Economic Zones in Africa: Can Agricultural Processing Be the Next SEZ Success Story?
By Sophia Kladaki and Jing Cai, Research Analysts at Development Reimagined “There is no one model of development” is one of the key principles, we, the team at Development Reimagined, try to champion when looking at key issues of economic growth ...
Reports of Arson Attacks Against Chinese Businesses in Nigeria and Arrest of Archbishop Protesting Treatment of Africans in Guangzhou Highlights Growing Tensions
Videos are spreading rapidly on Nigerian social media, purportedly showing hundreds of young men burning down Chinese-owned businesses and factories in the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone outside of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria. Although these videos were shot last week and posted ...
China Creates $5 Billion Export Fund with Bank in Morocco
China's Exim Bank announced plans to team up with Morocco's Attijariwafa Bank to create a $5 billion fund to promote African exports to China and to establish new industrial zones on the continent, according to a report published by Reuters. The ...
China's Special Economic Zones in Africa: Lots of Hype, Little Hope
A decade ago China announced it would develop a series of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Africa to boost trade and industrialization. Given the phenomenal success of China's SEZs that helped to spark the PRC's three-decades of history-making economic growth, not ...