China's Growth and the Agricultural Exports of Sub-Saharan Southern Africa

Nelson Villoria

The European Journal of Development Research, 2009, vol. 21, issue 4, 550 pages

Abstract: The implications of China's growth for the development prospects of sub-Saharan Africa have been the subject of recent attention. Interest in this topic is motivated by the increasing presence of China in the region, which in turn is reflected in the growing bilateral trade links. Against this background, this paper explores whether China's growth has stimulated agricultural exports in selected countries of Southern Africa, namely, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, the Southern African Custom Unions and Zambia. We find little complementarity between China's agricultural import demand and the Southern African (SA) countries’ agricultural export supply. We also explore the possibility of China affecting SA agricultural exports through higher world agricultural prices associated with China's growing demand for food. We find that, although China has moderately increased agricultural prices (in an aggregated sense), SA exports do not seem to benefit from these price increases.Les implications de la croissance de la Chine pour les perspectives de développement de l’Afrique subsaharienne sont récemment devenues un sujet d’intérêt en raison de la présence croissante de la Chine dans la région qui s’exprime notamment par des relations commerciales bilatérales en progression constante. Dans ce contexte, cet article cherche à déterminer si la croissance de la Chine a stimulé les exportations agricoles dans certains pays d’Afrique australe tels que le Malawi, le Mozambique, la Tanzanie, les membres de la SACU et la Zambie. Nous trouvons peu de complémentarités entre la demande d’importations agricoles de la Chine et l’offre d’exportations agricoles des pays d’Afrique australe. Nous étudions également la possibilité que les exportations agricoles de l’Afrique australe soient affectées de manière positive par la hausse des prix agricoles mondiaux, du fait de la demande croissante de biens alimentaires de la Chine. Bien que ces évolutions aient eu effectivement un impact modéré sur les prix agricoles, nous montrons que les exportations d’Afrique australe ne semblent pas bénéficier de ces hausses de prix.European Journal of Development Research (2009) 21, 531–550. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2009.27

Date: 2009
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