A photo taken in Abidjan on December 8, 2014 shows a Chinese shoe merchant trading at a market in Ajamen.
Xia Kambo | AFP | Getty Images
Chinese business transactions in Africa, once dominated by state-owned enterprises, are now shifting from the private sector to consumer products.
Africa’s fastest growing economies such as Kenya, Uganda and Zambia have annual growth rates of 4.8%, 6.4% and 5.8% respectively, while the overall GDP of the continent’s 50+ countries is 4.1%. This is according to the IMF’s economic outlook report released last month.
According to the Rhodium Group’s China Cross-Border Monitor released on November 18 this year, Chinese investment in Africa’s resource-intensive sectors has fallen by about 40% from its peak in 2015, due to lower profits in traditional commodity industries and lower construction revenues.
Meanwhile, China’s exports to Africa rose 28% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025, following a 57% increase from 2020 to 2024, the report said. Most of these products are high value-added industrial products such as electronics, plastics, and textiles.
“Early on, the Chinese companies we acquired were doing more infrastructure, and they were doing more mining of natural minerals,” said Joe Ngai, chairman of McKinsey Greater China.
“I think in recent years people have been trying to think about the African consumer market,” he says. But he warned that market fragmentation and thin margins could make such businesses difficult.
The change comes as the continent’s first G20 summit opens in South Africa over the weekend. Although the United States only sent a chargé d’affaires, Chinese Premier Li Qiang represented Beijing and increased opportunities for high-level business talks.
In contrast to a few years ago, when people in China didn’t know much about what was going on in Africa, now “there’s more business travel, more people sending their employees overseas. It feels more complex,” said Heather Li, a China-Africa consultant and founder of Dot Connector. He noted that large Chinese companies are increasingly sending decision-makers to Africa to explore specific market opportunities.
China’s solar products have been welcomed in West Africa due to power shortages, while medical supplies, baby products and household items are also popular across Africa, Lee said.
Already, Chinese smartphone company Transsion has been building a business in Africa for years, and telecoms giant Huawei and consumer electronics company Midea are also expanding their operations there.
In July, Chinese state media reported that Midea Group had signed an agreement with the Confederation of African Football to increase investment in the region. The company has already built a factory in Egypt and has plans to build more.
Growing attention on Chinese social media
The evolving situation is evident not only in investment data but also in the experiences Chinese entrepreneurs share online.
On social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, posts over the past year have portrayed Africa as an emerging destination for small, agile business ventures spanning dropshipping and e-commerce, as well as manufacturing and retail industries linked to Chinese supply chains.
One earphone and data cable trader described his move from China to Nigeria and his search for an African partner, while another social media account chronicled the progress of a business owner’s tapioca business in Kenya. Social media posts also show entrepreneurs selling slippers, small appliances, furniture and push nails.
Joseph Keshi, a Nigerian-born real estate investor and business strategist, said he has worked closely with Chinese entrepreneurs, some of whom earned six-figure incomes in their first year.
While Li cautioned that some may be exaggerating on social media, he noted that the revelations could amplify China’s awareness of opportunities in Africa.
Euromonitor data confirms that this trend is happening on a larger scale, highlighting how many Chinese companies sell basic consumer goods such as diapers, household goods, packaged sauces and snacks in Africa.
“With rapid urbanization, a younger and increasingly connected population, household spending across the continent is expected to exceed US$2 trillion by 2030,” Kristi Towie, regional insights manager at Euromonitor International, said in a statement.
She also pointed to the rise of e-commerce platforms like Chinese Supermarket, which extend the reach of Asian and Chinese brands to African households.
Many of these entrepreneurs are optimistic that expanding the use of the Chinese renminbi in Africa could reduce transaction risks and deepen commercial relationships. According to Rhodium’s report, the Chinese yuan is currently used for “30% of trade invoices.”
But Rhodium Group and the Atlantic Council say there is a “structural ceiling” to expanding the use of the yuan, citing China’s trade surplus with most African countries and global dependence on the US dollar.
Export-only pitfalls
The growing interest of Chinese consumer companies in Africa comes as domestic profit margins are shrinking due to slower economic growth and increased competition.
Rhodium Group noted that selling to African consumers is also becoming more attractive for Chinese companies that face trade barriers with the United States and Europe. Analysts painted a “stagnation scenario” in which China’s exports would increasingly flow to regions such as Africa if China fails to resolve its overcapacity problem and faces further restrictions in Europe.
Cheap imports benefit consumers, but in Africa, as in other parts of the world, a surge in low-cost exports can undermine local manufacturing and deepen trade imbalances.
“We need to look at Africa not just as a consumer market, but as a market that produces the goods that the continent itself consumes,” said Ebipere Clark, a visiting researcher and consultant at the African Policy Institute.
Some Chinese companies have already started local production.
“Africa is becoming more industrialized,” Dot Connector’s Lee said. “I was involved in a consulting project to attract Chinese light industry and move manufacturing to Africa. China also has preferential access to the US and European markets.”
Guangzhou-based trading company Sunda International, which sells a wide range of products from agricultural tools to daily necessities, claims to have ramped up the construction of more than 20 production centers in Africa in the past decade.
Sunda reportedly earns up to $450 million a year by supplying essential goods such as baby diapers and sanitary napkins to African markets.
Several of Sunda’s listed factories are located in Zambia. This is where Prime Minister Lee last week signed a $1.4 billion deal to modernize the Indian Ocean-to-Indian railway, with the aim of significantly expanding cargo volumes.
