<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<p>China’s investment activities and infrastructure development in Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”) have changed the prospects of economic cooperation between African countries and Asia’s largest economy. Africa plays a prominent role in one of the key BRI corridors, which explains China’s active engagement on the continent through the construction of hard infrastructure, port development and trade and investment activities. China is Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner and foreign direct investor. This paper analyses China’s investments and trade flows with Africa, the importance of African countries for the BRI and China-Africa relations within the geopolitical triangle US-EU-Russia. We applied correlation analysis to assess the intensity of the relationship between FDI and trade and an autoregressive model to extrapolate import and export data for a given period with the aim of forecasting trends in the development of China - Africa economic relations. Empirical results indicate a strong correlation between China’s FDI to African countries and their trade flows. The autoregressive model estimates a substantial increase in their trade flows, which, along with China’s infrastructural development in Africa, suggests a change in the dynamics of their trade cooperation and in the geographical structure of African countries’ foreign trade.</p>
</abstract>

China’s investment activities and infrastructure development in Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”) have changed the prospects of economic cooperation between African countries and Asia’s largest economy. Africa plays a prominent role in one of the key BRI corridors, which explains China’s active engagement on the continent through the construction of hard infrastructure, port development and trade and investment activities. China is Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner and foreign direct investor. This paper analyses China’s investments and trade flows with Africa, the importance of African countries for the BRI and China-Africa relations within the geopolitical triangle US-EU-Russia. We applied correlation analysis to assess the intensity of the relationship between FDI and trade and an autoregressive model to extrapolate import and export data for a given period with the aim of forecasting trends in the development of China - Africa economic relations. Empirical results indicate a strong correlation between China’s FDI to African countries and their trade flows. The autoregressive model estimates a substantial increase in their trade flows, which, along with China’s infrastructural development in Africa, suggests a change in the dynamics of their trade cooperation and in the geographical structure of African countries’ foreign trade.

China - Africa Trade and Investment Relations Under the Belt and Road Initiative

Economic Themes

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"China - Africa Trade and Investment Relations Under the Belt and Road Initiative"}

China’s investment activities and infrastructure development in Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”) have changed the prospects of economic...

China - Africa Trade and Investment Relations Under the Belt and Road Initiative

Published Online: Sep 14, 2023

Page range: 171 - 196

Received: May 09, 2023

Accepted: Jun 20, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ethemes-2023-0009

Keywords
China-Africa economic relations, BRI, Silk Road, Chinese FDI in Africa

© 2023 Sanela Mrdaković et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

China - Africa Trade and Investment Relations Under the Belt and Road Initiative

Published Online: Sep 14, 2023

Page range: 171 - 196

Received: May 09, 2023

Accepted: Jun 20, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ethemes-2023-0009

KeywordsChina-Africa economic relations, BRI, Silk Road, Chinese FDI in Africa

© 2023 Sanela Mrdaković et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
China-Africa economic relations, BRI, Silk Road, Chinese FDI in Africa