Chinese Investment in Nigeria

CFR blogs

18 August 2011

Chinese Investment in Nigeria

by John Campbell

Given that Nigeria has the second largest economy in Africa and that its population of almost 160 million includes one out of every four or five sub-Saharan Africans, the Chinese presence is relatively anemic. A press report of an exchange between Rong Yansong, the economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese embassy in Abuja, and Samuel Ortom, the Nigerian minister for trade and investment, provides a window into some of the issues.

Yansong claimed that Chinese enterprises in Nigeria employ over forty thousand Nigerians. In a country as big as Nigeria, and where Chinese involvement is heavily in construction, this does not seem to be a large number. A long-standing Nigerian complaint is Chinese reluctance to use Nigerian labor, including the unskilled labor often required at construction sites in developing countries. Yansong appears to be responding to that complaint. He also said that the value of trade and investment between China and Nigeria is now 8.2 billion dollars and could reach ten billion dollars by the end for the year. For comparison’s sake, the value of U.S.-Nigeria trade in 2010 was about 34.6 billion dollars and U.S. direct investment (PDF) in Nigeria in 2009 was about five billion, mostly in the oil sector. Nigerians have long complained that the reality of Chinese investment in Nigeria does not match its rhetoric though.