Johannesburg, South Africa—

The number of Chinese workers across Africa has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, new data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics shows.

In 2015, there were a record 263,696 workers on the continent, and by 2022, the latest year on record, there were only 88,371 workers.

this China-Africa Research Program Johns Hopkins University analyzed data from 2009 to 2022 and attributed part of the decline to the pandemic, as Chinese workers left during that period and the country did not reopen until early 2023.

But experts say a variety of other factors are responsible for the plunge in numbers, including rising oil prices and the scaling back of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative, which initially sent thousands of Chinese nationals across the continent to work on large-scale infrastructure construction project.

Expected to rise?

“We don’t have data for 2023, but anecdotally more delayed projects are resuming. However, we are unlikely to see the high numbers of the past,” said Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative ) said when asked whether last year’s numbers would rebound and possibly continue to do so.

Chen Yunnan, a researcher at ODI Global, a British research institution, is also pessimistic.

“Some construction may have restarted since 2022, but we know that the overall number of projects financed in China has been declining for many years and that has been a hindrance to any new project deals over the past few years. So I don’t expect these numbers to be It will increase significantly very soon,” she told VOA.

The five countries with the largest number of Chinese workers in 2022 are Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although Algeria and Angola still led the way in the number of workers, they also experienced the largest declines.

In 2016, there were more than 91,000 Chinese workers in Algeria, while the highest number in Angola was 50,000. By 2022, only about 7,000 workers will remain in each country.

Brautigam told VOA that the sharp drop in oil prices “is caused by the price of oil.” They are highly dependent on oil exports and use oil to pay for almost all government expenditures. ”

In Angola, China helped the country rebuild after its civil war ended in 2002, with the Export-Import Bank of China pledging $2 billion in oil-backed loans. But then global oil prices fell and Angola fell into debt.

The country’s president, João Lourenco, was first elected in 2017 and has sought to diversify the economy and reduce reliance on China, resulting in fewer Chinese projects and fewer workers.

But Angola’s future may soon include more Chinese workers. During a visit to Beijing on Friday, Lourenco and China’s president agreed to upgrade bilateral ties that would promote more trade and investment.

buck the trend

However, not all African countries have seen a recent decline in the number of Chinese workers, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt and Zimbabwe being the most obvious outliers.

In 2022, there were more than 7,000 Chinese working in Egypt, compared with about 2,000 before the outbreak. The number of Chinese workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo will exceed 8,000 by 2022, up from about 3,000 in 2012. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has remained stable over the past four years with about 1,000 Chinese workers.

“Zimbabwe is of particular interest because it has a major steel plant and other mineral processing projects that are about to be completed,” said Lauren Johnston, a China expert at the University of Sydney, noting China’s interest in African oil. Dependence is decreasing and shifting towards dependence on African oil. Green energy and minerals.

Zimbabwe has large deposits of lithium, one of the key minerals needed to shift to electric vehicles, and China has invested heavily in the industry in the country.

“Zimbabwe is building large-scale value-added mineral processing facilities, as well as power projects required for mining and mineral processing,” Brautigam noted.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is also rich in minerals, especially cobalt, while in Egypt the Chinese are building an entire government new capital outside cairo.

Increased local job opportunities?

Despite the scale of its projects, China has often been criticized for failing to help create jobs in Africa or provide locals with new skills. While a large number of local workers were indeed employed, they tended to fill the most basic positions, while more senior positions were reserved for the Chinese.

“Generally speaking, Chinese projects do employ local labor,” Chen said.

“Typically at the beginning of a project there is a higher ratio of Chinese engineers and skilled workers, but over time this tends to change as more local workers are hired,” she said. But she noted that large Most people work in unskilled jobs.

Brautigam said that although China is now sending fewer of its own people to Africa, Chinese companies may not immediately hire Africans for high-paying, high-skilled jobs.

“What they need to add is hiring managers locally,” Brautigam said. “But it takes time and it also requires developing the Chinese skills of local managers.”