China began to invest in African countries in the 1980s, and on a small scale at the beginning. In the 1990s China kept expanding its investment scale, widening the fields of investment and diversifying investment approaches in Africa. Since 2000, driven by the FOCAC, China's investment in Africa has been growing rapidly, gradually forming a pluralized investment pattern. Meanwhile, Africa has also become active in its investment in China, and the business of a number of African enterprises is fast growing in the Chinese market.
In recent years, China' s investment in Africa has shown new characteristics. First, rapid growth. By the end of 2003 China's direct investment in Africa had reached US$490 million, rocketing to US$9.33 billion by the end of 2009. Second, wide distribution. China's investment in Africa is distributed in 49 African countries, and most of which is in South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia, Sudan, Algeria and Egypt. Third, wide range of areas. China's investment in Africa covers mining, financing, manufacturing, construction, tourism, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries. Fourth, multiform methods. In addition to sole proprietorship and joint-venture ownership, investment methods are also being increasingly diversified, such as equity participation, merger and acquisition, and joint-venture cooperation with third-country enterprises for resources development. Fifth, diverse investors. State-owned large and medium-sized enterprises, private enterprises and individuals he all invested and started business in Africa, complementing each other with their own advantages.
The Chinese government encourages and supports Chinese enterprises with strength and good reputation to expand their investment in Africa, and has adopted necessary measures to guide them in this respect. The result is satisfactory. First, a forable investment environment has been created by signing agreements and other approaches. So far, China has signed bilateral agreements with 33 African countries regarding the promotion and protection of investment, and it has signed agreements with 11 African countries on oiding double taxation, thereby creating forable conditions for China-Africa enterprise cooperation. Second, China has set up the China-Africa Development Fund. This is a stock equity fund created by China's financial organizations to give special support to Chinese enterprises when they invest in Africa. Over the three years since its establishment, the fund has approved investment in over 30 projects, covering agricultural development, machinery manufacturing, electric power, building materials, industrial parks, mining and port logistics, among other fields. Now the arrangement of the first-stage fund of US$1 billion has been completed, and the fund is expected to be increased to US$5 billion. Third, China has been pushing forward the building of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones in Africa. Supported by governments of the two sides, Chinese enterprises take charge of infrastructure construction in the operation zones, and attract Chinese and foreign enterprises to move in and gradually form industrial clusters. At present, China is building six economic and trade cooperation zones in Zambia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia, hing invested US$250 million in infrastructure construction. The Zambia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone was the first overseas economic and trade cooperation zone launched by China. So far 13 companies he moved in; they engage in mining, prospecting, nonferrous metals processing, chemical engineering, and construction, hing made investment worth US$600 million, and providing more than 6,000 jobs for local people.
African countries possess rich resources, hence cooperation in resource development is a significant part of China-Africa investment cooperation. In recent years, in accordance with the principle of mutually beneficial cooperati[收起]
