China and Africa: The Mining Challenge

BRICS and Africa
By Jean-Raphaël Chaponnière
English

Beyond questions posed in the economics literature about the implications for development of exporting countries’ rich underground resources, this paper looks at a possible rebalancing and restructuring of the Chinese economy and its impact on the economies of minerals-exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Although China is the largest importer of sub-Saharan minerals, a rebalancing of the Chinese economy and a lowering of the share of investment in China’s GDP is on the agenda; the new Chinese leaders having stated that they aim to lessen that share from 48% today to 42% by 2022, a 1% decrease in investment could lead to a 1.3% fall in the price of minerals. Exporting countries in Africa with the least diversified economies would feel the impact of such a decrease especially strongly.

Keywords

  • China
  • Africa
  • mining
  • BRICS
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