China's development projects in Africa, which had slowed for a while due to cuts in Belt and Road (land and maritime Silk Road) investment, are revving up again. Buoyed by this, the number of Chinese workers dispatched to Africa has turned upward for the first time in 10 years.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong reported on the 21st (local time), "Chinese workers are returning to Africa in the thousands," adding, "As capital flows reaccelerate around investments led by Chinese state-owned enterprises, the number of Chinese workers is rising again in major African countries."
According to the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) under the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), there were 90,793 Chinese workers engaged in contract projects and labor services on the African continent in 2024. That is about a 4% increase from the previous year (87,078).
The number of Chinese workers in Africa steadily increased after China launched the Belt and Road project in 2013, reaching a record high of 263,696 in 2015. However, as China's economic slowdown reduced the scale of investment and the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the impact, the number of Chinese workers dispatched to Africa had been declining over the past 10 years.
By country as of last year, Chinese workers were concentrated in Guinea (11,071), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (9,694), Egypt (8,170), Angola (7,444), and Nigeria (6,035). This tally only counts personnel dispatched under official state contracts, and the actual scale is likely larger if unofficial migrants such as traders or small shop operators are included.
China is pushing a Simandou iron ore project in Guinea worth about $20 billion (about 29.6 trillion won) and is carrying out a standard-gauge railway project in Tanzania. SCMP said these projects are being pursued in large consortium formats involving multiple corporations and require a significant level of skilled labor at the final construction stage.
Deborah Brautigam, director of CARI, said it "shows that the nature of China's overseas contracting business is changing." With projects such as the modernization of the TAZARA (Tanzania–Zambia) railway, China's first infrastructure built in Africa in 1975, on the schedule, the number of Chinese workers flowing into Africa is expected to increase further.
However, the number of Chinese workers in Africa has not yet fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Although the number rebounded last year, it still falls short of about 93,000 at the end of 2021, during the pandemic.
Kai Xie, an investment lawyer based in Beijing, said, "Despite the recent increase, the reported number of Chinese workers remains in a 'post-Covid plateau' that is well below 2019 levels."