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Why have thousands of Chinese workers left Africa over the past decade?

  • IMF report says that between 2015 and 2021, the total number of Chinese workers in African countries fell by 64 per cent
  • Shrinking funding for projects and the coronavirus pandemic were key factors, observer say

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The number of Chinese workers in Africa has fallen sharply since the peak of 2015, with the cause largely put down to the pandemic and funding for projects drying up. Photo: Xinhua

Around two decades ago, former Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s push for businesses to “go out” saw thousands of mainland companies head to Africa in search of new markets and raw materials.

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With them, went thousands of Chinese migrant workers and by 2015 they numbered around 263,000 in Africa.
But since that peak, the number of Chinese workers in Africa has plummeted as funding for infrastructure projects has dried up, a situation worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.
By the end of 2021, the official number of Chinese workers in Africa was about 93,000, a fall of 64 per cent from 2015, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper about China’s economic engagements with Africa published in February.

In Algeria and Angola almost 90 per cent of the number of registered Chinese workers left. The paper did note, however, the real total may be slightly higher as those numbers did not include informal migrants such as private traders, investors and shopkeepers.

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The decline in workers is inextricably linked to the gross annual revenues of Chinese companies’ construction projects in Africa.
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