This first edition of the China-Africa economic bulletin provides a comprehensive overview of the key channels of China-Africa economic engagement over the last decade, with a focus on shifting economic trends in the past five years. The collapse of global commodity prices beginning in 2014, tied with the domestic slowdown in China, has significant implications for the tenor and nature of China’s economic relationship with African countries going forward. Our data shows most recent figures up to 2015, as well as the broader economic trends: bilateral trade; Chinese outward direct investment to Africa; Chinese labor and contract values; and Chinese loans to African governments. The effect of low commodity prices has been salient in almost every aspect of China-Africa economic relations, most visibly in trade, and may indicate a shift away from the intensive trade-based relationship that characterized the height of China-Africa relations in the 2000s.
