March 12th, 2024
China and Africa have forged a strong economic relationship since China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, but the number of Chinese workers in Africa dropped to a new low in 2022, continuing an annual decline since a peak of nearly 264,000 workers in 2015.
Algeria and Angola have had by far the highest number of Chinese workers in Africa, each with over 400,000 in total between 2009 and 2022, according to the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins.
Chinese workers in Africa include those who work on construction projects by Chinese contractors, and those who leave China to work for local companies.
Their populations rose in the years up to 2015 as the gross revenues of Chinese companies in Africa increased but also began to decline in line with “a reduction of overall Chinese economic activity on the continent,” according to an IMF working paper which examines the evolution of these economic ties starting in the early 2000s, and the subsequent shift in the relationship triggered by the commodity price collapse in 2015 and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.