EU, US growing investment in Africa challenges China’s Belt and Road offensive – The North Africa Post

China’s Belt and Street funding in sub-Saharan Africa fell to a brand new low in 2023, which demonstrates that elevated EU and US spending might cut back the area’s must depend on Beijing for funding.

China’s funding within the area associated to Beijing’s Belt and Street (BRI) initiative, the primary pillar of its international infrastructure growth technique, dropped 55% to $7.5 billion final 12 months, based on a current report from the Inexperienced Finance and Improvement Heart at Shanghai-based Fudan College.

This comes because the European Union and the US have more and more sought the type of affect Beijing has spent a long time constructing. “Whereas China has maintained a considerable presence on the continent for over 20 years, the rising curiosity of Western powers in Africa might affect China’s BRI technique,” mentioned Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, a French funding financial institution.

Whereas China continues to be one of many main financiers of infrastructure tasks in sub-Saharan Africa, with a complete funding of $155 billion over the previous 20 years, the EU and US are rapidly catching up, together with by lately asserting intentions to boost investments on the continent.

In 2022, Brussels introduced its new Africa coverage and Washington joined different G7 nations in a $600 billion Partnership for World Infrastructure and Funding (PGII). This growth, specialists say, underlines mounting considerations in Western capitals about Beijing’s rising huge affect and contacts with a number of African nations, gained by the BRI, which is extensively seen as a automobile for Chinese language geopolitical growth.

“The elevated curiosity in Africa (by the US and the EU) displays a shift within the international financial order,” Garcia-Herrero mentioned. “With China’s economic system weakening, (the US and the EU) are looking for to diversify their property and prolong their affect in rising nations.”