At home in ‘promised land’

The largest African community in China has created its own business centre

IT started during the late 1990s, when thousands of African expatriates, most of them traders and business people, began to move to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in search for a better life.

In the 2000s, during a time of economic boom in China, the country’s African population rapidly started growing, with settled migrants building their own small businesses and creating the biggest African community in China, now known as “Little Africa” or the “promised land”.

The area stretches for about 7km from Dengfeng urban village, the heart of Guangzhou’s Little Africa, to Sanyuanli, a place full of wholesale markets where people can buy almost everything – from products, clothing, and wigs to electronics.

It is hard to determine the exact number of African expats living in China nowadays. According to the book by Professor Adams Bodomo, about 100 000 settled in Guangzhou by 2012.

City border checkpoints recorded about 430 000 arrivals and exits by nationals from African countries in the first nine months of 2014.

By February 2017, according to a Guangzhou police official, there were about 10 000 Africans officially registered in the city.

It is, however, likely that the number of Africans living in Guangzhou is higher than the official figures suggest. – EPA

PICTURES: EPA SHOPKEEPING: An African man at a market in Guangzhou, southern China. African migrants built small businesses and created the biggest African community in China.

BOOM: African and Chinese women work at the Beauty Exchange Centre in Guangzhou, southern China. In the 2000s, during an economic boom in China, its African population rapidly started growing, building small businesses where people can buy almost...