Supporting investment in Africa

The development fund aids Chinese firms to enter the continent’s market

The China-africa Development Fund (CAD Fund) was established in 2007 to assist Chinese companies to enter the African market. The fund was established with the approval of the Chinese government and initial funding of Us$1bn from the China Development Bank (CDB), one of China’s three policy banks. It was the first fund of its kind focused solely on investing in Africa and aims to remedy the gap under the traditional model of free aid and loans without increasing the debt burden on African countries through market orientation in order for them to achieve sustained and healthy self-development. To date the fund has invested in a number of sectors including agriculture, infrastructure, energy and manufacturing in 36 African countries.

The fund has Us$10bn available for investment. SA is one of the key targeted countries for investment by the CAD Fund.

It provided finance to fund Hisense’s Cape Town-based industrial park project as well as funding for the First Automotive Works (FAW) automotive assembly plant project at Coega in the Eastern Cape, the acquisition of the Wesizwe Platinum project by China-africa Jinchuan Investment, the acquisition of Palabora Mining

Corp by Hebei Iron & Steel Group, the Beijing Automotive Group’s heavy-duty assembly plant project in Coega, together with various other construction and energyrelated projects.

To date the CAD Fund has invested more than $683m in Sabased projects.