China 'buying out' Africa: Top 5 destinations of Chinese money

On a quest to secure raw materials and energy resources to support the exponential growth of its economy, China has become the fastest-growing investor in Africa. Here are the top five destinations of Chinese capital, in order of estimated Chinese investment.

5. Botswana

With rich natural resources such as diamonds, nickel, coal, copper, and gold, Botswana is one of the fastest developing economies in the world, averaging a 9 percent annual growth, the World Bank reports. Botswana's diamond reserves are the main driver, accounting for one-third of the country's GDP and 70 percent of its export earnings, and they are expected to be sufficient for at least another 20 years, according to the US Department of State. In addition, significant uranium reserves were discovered in 2006. 

China is offering Botswana interest-free loans, low-interest loans, as well as grants, and it has a stake in 28 projects such as roads and railway renovation, health facilities and low-cost housing construction, according to the website of the Chinese Embassy in Botswana. Along these lines, in 2009, Standard Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) financed the expansion of the Morupule coal power station by providing a $825 million loan over a 20 year period. The deal aims to improve the country’s energy self-reliance and to “secure power supply by expanding the existing generating capacity,” Reuters reports.

5 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.