China’s investment into Africa appears to be another casualty of the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese cross-border investment in greenfield projects and in expansion of existing projects in Africa fell by 84 per cent in the first half of this year compared with a year earlier, from $3.54bn to $568m.
With less money being spent on the big projects that dominated investment in the first half of 2014, Chinese investment has refocused on its original interest in the continent: raw materials.
Even as its total investments fell back sharply in the first half of 2015, investment into extractive industries nearly doubled. Chinese spending on projects in oil, gas, coal, mining and metals rose from $141.4m to $288.9m over the period.