Kenyan Traders Protest Chinese Competition

 Reuters published on 28 February 2023 an article titled "Kenyan Traders Protest against Chinese Competitors Cheap Prices" by Duncan Miriri.

More than a thousand Kenyan traders protested in Nairobi against a new Chinese-owned retail shop they accuse of undercutting them with prices that are about 50 percent lower.  

Comment: While the Kenyan traders are rightly unhappy, Kenyan consumers likely welcome the lower prices.  The question is whether Chinese importers are playing by the rules and paying full customs duties.  

Chinese Infrastructure Loans to Africa and Entrepreneurship

 The China Africa Research Initiative published in May 2021 a paper titled "Do Chinese Infrastructure Loans Promote Entrepreneurship in African Countries?" by Jonathan Munemo.

The paper examines the impact of Chinese economic infrastructure loans on entrepreneurship for a sample of African countries spanning the period 2006-2018.  The study demonstrates that African countries with a higher percentage of economic infrastructure loans in gross domestic product have greater entrepreneurship in the form of new business startups.

African Economic Outlook 2017

The African Development Bank, the Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the UN Development Programme published on 22 May 2017 "African Economic Outlook 2017: Entrepreneurship and Industrialization."

This annual massive study reports that in 2016, Africa's economic growth slowed to 2.2 percent from 3.4 percent in 2015 due to low commodity prices, weak global recovery and adverse weather conditions, which impacted agricultural production in some regions. Africa's economic growth is expected to rebound to 3.4 percent in 2017 and 4.3 percent in 2018.

Although economic headwinds experienced in the last two years appear to have altered the "Africa rising narrative," the African Development Bank believes the continent remains resilient, with non-resource dependent economies sustaining higher growth for a much longer period. With dynamic private sectors, entrepreneurial spirit and vast resources, Africa has the potential to grow even faster and more inclusively.

The Chinese Presence in Africa

The most recent issue (1/2015) of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs is devoted to the Chinese presence in Africa.  All of the articles are open access.  They include:

--Adaptation and Learning among Chinese Actors in Africa by Karsten Giese.
--Chinese Adaptations: African Agency, Fragmented Community and Social Capital Creation in Ghana by Katy N. Lam.
--Of Other Spaces? Hybrid Forms of Chinese Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa by Romain Dittgen.
--In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria by Allen Sai Xiao.
--Non-Interference 2.0: China's Evolving Foreign Policy towards a Changing Africa by Richard Aidoo and Steve Hess.
--Running Out of Time? The Evolution of Taiwan's Relations in Africa by Timothy S. Rich and Vasabjit Banerjee.