CABC Releases Chinese Investment in Africa Report 2025
The China-Africa Business Council (CABC) released its 2025 Chinese Investment in Africa report, sub-titled “Building Integrated Futures: China-Africa Investment and Africa’s Regional Integration,” at the end of October 2025. The Report reviews China’s Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into Africa, with a comparison between the previous FOCAC8 (2021-2023) and the current FOCAC9 (2024-2026) timeframes.
Up to 2024, the cumulative FDI from China into Africa amounts to USD 43.8 billion since #FOCAC was initiated. Annually, China invests a few billion US dollars in Africa. After a high of USD 5 billion in 2021, 2022 was a low point with only USD 2 billion. Then, Chinese FDI rebounded to USD 4 billion in 2023, then amounted to USD 3.4 billion in 2024.
The key sectors are construction (30%), mining (22%), manufacturing (18%), trade facilitation for #SME (10%), and digitalization (8%). Contrary to popular perception, China is not the top source of #FDI into Africa, but is in the Top 5, behind the Netherlands, US, UK, and France. The Netherlands distinguishes itself as the preferred investment gateway of Europe into Africa. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have also made significant inroads into Africa over the past few years.
In terms of regions, the destinations of Chinese investments rank as follows: Southern Africa 35%, Eastern Africa 25%, Western Africa 20%, Central Africa 10%, and Northern Africa 10%. The Report stressed that the overlapping of certain #REC sometimes creates some coordination headaches.
At the country level, China tries to distribute its investments across every region of Africa and tends to favor countries that present a large population or a big #GDP, such as South Africa ($420M), Nigeria (240M), Ethiopia (136M), Egypt (120M), and DR Congo (113M). Recently, other countries have managed to attract some Chinese FDI, namely Guinea, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, thanks to their substantial reserves of #CriticalMinerals. Generally speaking, Northern Africa is more developed than Sub-Saharan Africa, with Morocco and Egypt managing to grab Chinese attention by leveraging their geostrategic locations.
Some of the flagship Chinese projects in Africa include the XinFeng Steel Complex and Haier home appliances plant in Egypt, Palm River Metallurgical #SEZ in Zimbabwe, the Sino-Tanzania Industrial Park, and the National ID and Tax System in Angola. Shanxi Xintai pledged to mobilize Chinese investments up to USD 3.6 billion for its industrial park in Zimbabwe.
In conclusion, the Report points out that the #RegionalIntegration push under the #AfCFTA will create great opportunities for Chinese investment in industrialization and modernization. The Report recommends that the AU set up an AfCFTA office in China and calls for better feasibility studies to usher in ‘a new era of high-quality China-Africa partnership.’
