Chinese FDI: A study of the impact of Chinese infrastructure investments in Kenya, Africa

Over the last century, Chinese Foreign Direct Investments have made great impacts on African countries. Large amounts of FDI from China has flooded into African infrastructure investments, targeting key sectors such as telecommunications, transportation, power plants, and port refurbishments. No doubt China treats itself as an equal and a generous partner of African countries, yet not an uncontroversial one especially from the perspective of foreign observers. There have been many critical voices on China-Africa relations over the years. In order to test the validity of the critiques as well as the praises, two infrastructure construction projects were chosen as case studies in this thesis. They are the Standard Gauge Railroad and A109 national road. Both contracts were signed between the Kenyan government and a Chinese state-owned company, Chinese Road and Bridge Cooperation (CRBC). By analyzing the first hand data and some supplementary second hand data, it indicates that though CRBC as contractor had made some decisions based on self-interests, the critics of labor importation and resource plunder lack supporting evidence. Instead, for these particular projects, they generated positive economic impacts on national development. However, many improvements are highly recommended for both parties to make the projects better in the future