Dec. 6 (GIN) – Not everything glows brightly in the trade deals China is cutting with Africa although they are the envy of western countries including the U.S.
After investing almost a billion dollars on the African continent, Chi Jianxin, head of the China-Africa Development Fund, admitted all is not well.
China has not been able to realize a profit, Chi said in a recent interview in Beijing. The Asian giant is still seeking a “beneficial result” in the long term, he told a reporter with Bloomberg News.
“When we started, we didn’t have investing experience in Africa, and we hoped to have a quite good profit in three to five years so we could exit investments,” said Chi. “But we’ve seen it’s not as easy as that.”
China is Africa’s largest trading partner and has signed agreements worth billions of dollars with African governments, seeking natural resources to feed its economic growth in exchange for building roads and railways, and nurturing a market for its products.