Beschreibung:
The impacts of Chinese investment in and trade with Africa have become the subject of much speculation. CIFOR's 'Chinese trade and investment in Africa' project seeks to understand the impacts of China's role in shifting global trade flows and investment patterns on forests in 2 African eco-regions, the Congo Basin and the southern African woodlands, with a focus on sectors with potential direct impacts on forests: mining, forestry and agriculture. The lack of a comprehensive database of Chinese investments in Africa makes it difficult to build a picture and analyse trends and patterns. The analysis in this working paper draws on a database (spanning 1983 to 2010) of approvals by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China (MOFCOM) for Chinese companies to engage in overseas investments. Records in the database indicate the companies' intent to invest overseas, but do not record actual investments that were completed. Additional sources are used to characterise trends in Chinese merger and acquisition activities in the sectors of concern in Africa. The database contains 1346 records of approvals for Chinese companies to invest in Africa from 1988 to 2010, representing 8.47% of all approvals for overseas investment awarded to Chinese companies. Before 2002, fewer than 10 approvals were made per year. After 2002, approvals grew at an annual average rate of 250%, reaching 388 in 2010. Of these, 278 approvals were for the mining, forestry and agriculture sectors, of which 128 (44%) were in the 2 eco-regions of interest to the CIFOR project. In the mining sector, there were 209 approvals, with 70% concentrated in 10 countries ...