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Africa Buys More From China Than Ever. That’s a Problem.

China-Africa trade in the first eight months of the year increased by 15% to more than $220 billion, on track to break another annual record. A significant portion of that growth, however, stemmed from a surge in Chinese exports to African ...

Plugging-In Africa: Citi’s Ambitious EV Financing Future

The African electric vehicle (EV) market is projected to grow by 25 percent annually over the next five years. This means that stakeholders, including financiers, have to plan for this expansion if they are to benefit from the sector.

Africa’s EV Trade Siege and What’s Blocking the Future

The electric vehicle (EV) sector in many African countries faces critical challenges, slowing down the adoption of electric mobility. Some of these challenges are intra-African trade barriers, which make it hard to do cross-border trade. ...

Will China’s Trade Strategy in Africa Succeed Where Europe’s Didn’t?

At a recent ministerial meeting in the central Chinese city of Changsha, Beijing announced an ambitious new phase of its engagement with Africa: the possibility of eliminating customs duties on exports from all 53 African countries (except for Eswatini, which maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan). While many ...

What Trump’s Trade Policy Means for Africa, China, and the Future of Global Trade

When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he wasted no time reviving his hardline trade stance. Among the 200 executive orders issued on his first day was the America First Trade Policy Memorandum, aimed at rebalancing global trade through sweeping import tariffs. ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

The G20 Summit and the Half-Life of a Joke

When it was announced in 2023 that the African Union would become a full member of the G20, I darkly joked on a podcast that the AU’s entry into the body could very well mark the moment the G20 lost its status as one of the most important global coordination forums. Mark my words, I said, soon The Economist will be like “Uhhh, the G20 is OVER – it’s the ...

Why African Countries Can’t Rely on China to Fix The Trade Imbalance

It is beyond doubt that two-way trade will feature heavily in next week’s FOCAC ministerial meeting in Dakar, Senegal as China has already announced plans to further open its market for more African products. While this is a welcome move that will go a long way in ...

FOCAC PERSPECTIVES: Appeals For More People-to-People Ties and For Mutual Respect Between Chinese and Africans

Every day leading up to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference on November 29th and 30th, CAP will feature perspectives from journalists, academics, activists, and business leaders about what they hope will emerge from the FOCAC event in Dakar. If you ...

China Merchants Group Exporting Its Shekou Model of Port-industrial Development to Africa

As the final frontier for trade growth, Africa is the only region where exponential economic and cargo growth is still possible. The continent is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. However, many existing African ports do not have the capacity to accommodate a growing demand ...

China and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area: What Role For Beijing?

The January launch of the AfCFTA has prompted considerable reflection in both China and Africa as to what role Beijing can play in this new free trade era and whether China's role will be harmful or helpful.  Predictably, Chinese commentators are ...

Gyude Moore: “The Success or Failure of the AfCTA Will Be on Us and Us Alone”

On January 1, the long-held dream of creating a pan-African free trade zone became a reality with the launch of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). What makes this project unique, according to Center for Global Development Senior Policy Fellow Gyude Moore, is that this is ...