Beijing (AsiaNews) – Chinese companies that have built major infrastructure projects in many parts of Africa are sending fewer and fewer Chinese workers to the continent, whilst the presence of small private entrepreneurs – such as traders and industrialists moving there on their own initiative – is growing. However, those who arrive face problems such as high costs and inadequate infrastructure, often in countries burdened by debts owed to Chinese banks. The situation is made even more difficult by the fact that, in some regions, Chinese nationals are exposed to security risks.
According to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, between 2016 and 2024 the number of workers sent to Africa for major contracts fell by over 60 per cent, whilst the value of the respective projects fell by around 20 per cent. In the early years, the decline was concentrated in oil-producing countries, where the slump in crude oil prices that began in 2014 had drained funds for construction projects. The most extreme case is that of Algeria, where their presence has fallen to almost zero. Following the pandemic, the decline spread to almost the entire continent, as Chinese companies began hiring more local staff and subcontracting construction work and transport services to African firms. The nature of the projects has also changed, with fewer roads and buildings and more power stations and telecommunications networks – projects that require less labour.
Flights to Nairobi, however, continue to be full of Chinese passengers. There are no official statistics on how many have moved to Africa on their own initiative, but those who have lived there for years speak of tens of thousands of people in the countries where the community is largest, with estimates reaching as high as 100,000 in Ghana. A former executive of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, who arrived in Accra to set up his own business, recounts having shared a room with eight other people for a long time and having sold his goods in temperatures of over forty degrees in markets where there weren’t even toilets. For many of these entrepreneurs, returning to China would be tantamount to admitting defeat after so many sacrifices.
How much does it really cost to manufacture in Africa
In order to protect local jobs, Ghana and other countries ban foreigners from engaging in retail trade and various other activities, imposing visas that are so expensive as to discourage entrepreneurs who would like to bring in technicians from China. Connections between different African markets are so poor that goods sometimes have to pass through Europe to move from one country to another. The Huxiu website describes, as an example of the transport difficulties encountered, the case of some Chinese entrepreneurs who opened a glassworks in a remote area of Ghana, attracted by the low price of land and the availability of reliable water and electricity supplies. It was only once the business was up and running that they realised the extent to which damage to goods during the journey along barely passable access roads was affecting their accounts.
However, even cheap labour does not guarantee that manufacturing in Africa is cost-effective. According to a 2019 study by New York University, an entry-level Ethiopian textile worker earned around $26 a month – one-thirteenth of a Chinese textile worker’s wage. Since then, wages in China have risen further, and this wage gap is attracting many Chinese entrepreneurs seeking locations to relocate factories that have become too expensive at home. Another investigation by Huxiu reveals why such cost savings are often insufficient. In one of Ethiopia’s major industrial parks, built by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, producing a T-shirt costs more than in Bangladesh due to extremely low productivity. Workers come from rural areas and receive just two weeks’ training, but with wages so low, nearly eight out of ten leave their jobs within a year, leaving production lines staffed by a constant stream of new and inexperienced workers, with no increase in productivity.
Added to this low productivity are infrastructure shortcomings, which can drive up costs even further. Ethiopia offers industries the cheapest electricity on the continent, but despite this, large factories experience dozens of power cuts a month. In Nigeria, the electricity grid supplies power for just over half a day, forcing the vast majority of businesses to install much more expensive diesel generators in order to operate during the remaining hours. Factories in Ethiopia also pay a high price for logistics, because transporting a container from the port of Djibouti to Addis Ababa costs more than shipping it by sea from China to Djibouti, even though the railway between the two cities – built by Chinese companies – has reduced costs by about a third compared with road transport.
Government debt and the risks for Chinese entrepreneurs
To build roads, railways and electricity grids, many African governments have taken on debt from Chinese banks. In 2020, Zambia became the first African country to declare sovereign debt default since the start of the pandemic. The debt owed to Chinese lenders amounted to around $6.6 billion, more than double what the government had ever admitted, partly because many contracts were subject to confidentiality clauses. When the country was hit by the worst drought in forty years in 2024, the hydroelectric power stations – on which Zambia’s electricity generation depends almost entirely – ran out of water, and the state, crippled by debt, lacked the resources needed to make up for this shortfall. In many areas, electricity was supplied for just four hours a day, leading to the closure of farms and small businesses.
Whilst debt is causing difficulties for African governments, in the most unstable regions it is Chinese citizens who face direct risks. Of the 89 foreigners kidnapped in Africa in 2025, 38 were Chinese, the majority of whom were employed in the gold mines of south-western Mali. Ransom payments are one of the main sources of funding for the al-Qaeda affiliate operating in the Sahel, and the Chinese embassy in Bamako has warned that unlicensed gold mining sites are the least protected. In recent days, Xi Jinping has set out four principles for resolving African crises, based on state sovereignty and dialogue between countries. In the Sahel, however, jihadist groups operate that answer to no government and are vying for control of territories that have now slipped from state control. Relations with African governments can also prove difficult, as demonstrated by the case of Niger, which expelled several Chinese oil sector executives over a dispute regarding the recruitment of local staff and subsequently acquired a significant stake in the company managing the oil pipeline built by the Chinese to the coast of Benin.
China’s presence in Africa increasingly depends on thousands of private initiatives proceeding without a common direction. Those behind them are primarily focused on immediate profit, not least because long-term planning is difficult in countries where regulations change rapidly and a currency devaluation can jeopardise the bottom line. For Beijing, this widespread presence is now much more difficult to manage and steer towards its political objectives than it was in the past.
