[mirajshah]

Ethiopia seemingly has an incredibly good relationship with China. The lion's share of FDI in Ethiopia is from China, and much of it goes towards large infrastructure projects. Flying through the airport in Addis recently I was surprised to see multiple Chinese restaurants, a special lounge for Chinese travelers, and signs everywhere in Chinese.

It's great to see economic cooperation working out so well on so many levels!

[component]

Ethiopian here

Yes, Chinese contractors are having a big boom (banks, stadiums, airports & roads)

There's a shortage of foreign currency due to the mega projects underway - medicine, electronics, car prices have nearly doubled

[dvfjsdhgfv]

> medicine, electronics, car prices have nearly doubled

What about salaries? Is the net result positive for you?

[component]

Salaries went up a bit also tax was reduced - needless to say the price spikes aren't proportional but it's a start

[bytematic]

I imagine most or almost all of those jobs are going to chinese firms and citizens

[gandreani]

> There's a shortage of foreign currency due to the mega projects underway

Could you elaborate? How is there a shortage if there's a ton of foreign investment coming in?

[Habesha]

Not all mega infrastructure projects are foreign aid/loan financed. For example the 6000 MW Nile Grand Renaissance Dam is self financed by Ethiopia.

Beside there is a deficit between export and import leading to currency shortage.

https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-energy-idUSL6N0N91Q...

[nwah1]

This sounds more like a case of rental values of locations increasing, as the price of prime urban land is bid up, requiring laborers be paid more to achieve the same standard of living, and inflating costs across the board.

Same issue that all booming cities face, whether it is New York, San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, or anywhere else.

Some manage it better than others.

[andrewksl]

Genuinely curious: As far as you know, are the projects synergistic, or do the Chinese offer lopsided/predatory deals?

[andrewksl]

As hopeful and excited as I am for Ethiopia, the cynical part of me can't help but see the relationship as less cooperation and more exploitation.

[freehunter]

Many countries grew rich off of US exploitation. Japan and then China wouldn't be the power houses they are today if it wasn't for the US needing a place to offload cheap and dirty manufacturing. True, many more countries were just exploited without any gain, but there are factors that can tilt the balance in your favor.

The fact that they're a strong economy with a strong military and have a government wary of imperialism bodes well, as long as the can keep the number of revolutions and civil conflicts low. Stability is the key.

[temp-dude-87844]

Let's have a nuanced conversation about this. The article suggests that Ethiopia may be trying to position itself as a destination for manufacturing. In today's global economy, regardless of value judgments about its merits, less developed countries have an opportunity because they can offer much lower labor costs than highly-developed states. However, structural changes that result from large-scale gainful employment cause costs to rise over time, as a middle class emerges, people place themselves into global context, and begin to ponder whether they can realistically achieve something better. This is happening in China today.

The continent of Africa remains the last frontier in outsourcing manufacturing, but right now it's not competitive: transport costs are high, there are issues with utilities, capricious governments, and no established concentration of expertise. The Chinese involvement is working hard on improving these for other reasons, but ironically it may enable Ethiopia to begin to take on roles that China has now in the global supply chain. It may also be deliberate: during a gold rush, most money was made by those who enabled the prospectors, not the prospectors themselves.

[dalore]

This might not be as good as you think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15272413

China will cause the country to become indebted to it and when they can't make the repayments offer to helpfully take full control of it.

[beat]

coughcoughIMFcough

More broadly, taking on debt to build the infrastructure needed to level up industrial capabilities isn't exploitation. Building better energy grids, transportation, and communication infrastructure is expensive. It's fundamentally no different than software startups taking on fundraising rounds to enable growth. As long as the leadership isn't irresponsible about it, there's nothing wrong with it and it should easily pay for itself.

The important thing for debt-for-infrastructure planning is to keep corruption manageable, so you don't wind up borrowing to build boondoggles that are for the personal enrichment of the the well-connected rather than the good of the country.

At any rate, China is no more predatory in this regard than the IMF, the World Bank, or other western financial institutions. They have a surplus of capital and need to invest it somewhere. The goal is not imperialist, but rather capitalist.

[dalore]

China is more imperial. They have a really long 100 year view. They don't mind losing money to gain a long term advantage.

Yes it's exactly/similar behaviour to the IMF. Doesn't make a difference though to the people.

[eloff]

I think what you say is true, but that you very much underestimate China's imperialist ambitions.

[thablackbull]

It would be better if you could attempt to support your argument with data, analysis and research.

Is Ethiopia in a lot of debt trouble? From [1], figure 1.17, doesn't seem too troubling, especially when considering its growth rate.

Your assertion that China plans to overload countries with debt also seem to be based on the heavily promoted Sri Lanka story while ignoring any other data points. The Center for Growth Development has a report, [2], Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective. They find that for the 68 countries analyzed, only 8 are at risk. Your story also contradicts the many times China has provided debt relief.

> In countries suffering from debt distress, the Chinese government has provided debt relief in an ad hoc, case-by-case manner [...] The IMF estimates that China has delivered over 80 percent of what it is expected to provide under HIPC. It was a creditor to 31 of the 36 HIPC countries, and the most recent publicly available information indicates that it provided relief in at least 28 of them, including 100 percent forgiveness for several (e.g., Burundi, Afghanistan, and Guinea). […] China has also demonstrated a willingness to provide additional credit so a borrower can avoid default. A prominent example is China's agreement in early 2017 to extend an RMB 15 billion swap line to Mongolia for three years in support of an IMF Extended Fund Facility.

[1] African Economic outlook: https://www.afdb.org/en/knowledge/publications/african-econo...

[2] PDF Warning: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/examining-debt-imp...

[dalore]

I said it might not be a good thing and pointed to a an example where it wasn't. The take away was to not just take the information at hand but do you own research (like you did).

[thablackbull]

"China will cause the country to become indebted to it and when they can't make the repayments offer to helpfully take full control of it."

You honestly can't tell me you don't see that as a loaded statement...And based on your replies to other commentators, doesn't seem like you intended that either.

[jrs95]

If the local government is already highly corrupt this might not even ultimately be a bad thing for most Ethiopians.

[BurningFrog]

Which countries have China taken control of in this way so far?

[dalore]

Well if you follow the link and read the article you might have an idea. Here is the NYTimes piece it links to https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/magazine/what-the-worlds-...

It has a little graphic showing China owning Pakistan, Kenya, Djibouti, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

[joelhaasnoot]

Note that this is probably also because of foreign travelers in transit through the airport. Ethiopian Airlines is growing fast and is a major player in travel to a lot of African countries. See for instance https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airlines/ethiopi...

A family member on a recent flight between Chad and Addis Abeba told me that 85% of passengers on the flight were Chinese.

[ak39]

A short summary of China's Belt and Road Initiative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXROXiIpvQ (6 min)

[jjcc]

It's more than just good relation, its a --quite-- assistant to Ethiopia from Chinese government to export nation build expertise with a goal of creating a prosperous area that ultimately as an investor also can benefit from the development and growth by itself.

Contractors and private companies are just tip of iceberg. A lot of hi level government cooperations , government sponsored think tank activities[1] which might play a more important role than private business activities. Chinese are coaching Ethiopia to build a nation.

It's the same journey that China itself experienced for last 30 years. The nation building expertise partially comes from tons of competing local government policy makers fighting for the prosperity of their home cities on the vast experiment field of 1.3 billion people, but in early years of struggle also from Hongkong,Taiwan entrepreneurs and even a foreign government with their management expertise when China was as poor as many Africa countries and with no expertise. During the time (in 1996) I created the first web site for CS-SIP[2], I witnessed local Chinese government officials learned from Singapore coaches like pupils.

Why Ethiopia? Because although it's a democracy but the Ethiopian political ecosystem is closer to an "Orwellian regime" that makes building nation possible. It's totally not because Chinese particularly like a regime. Actually Chinese are ideology agnostic and pragmatic. Chinese have a better understanding that this kind of "oppressive" governance creates less chaos. For example Chinese construction contractors almost always hire Chinese worker from China. The real reason is those are the only qualified teams[3] be able to get the job done. However in a democratic countries some sponsored NGO and activists will speak out the "true" that Chinese companies have job discrimination against local people. Then there are massive protests by local people Th Projects can not continue. These incidents happened many times in non-regime countries.

Why quite? Isn't nation building expertise is more valuable and worth to promote than business building expertise so larger population can benefit from? There are a couple of reasons:

1.Western journalists are almost all belief driven people with a little different mindset of HN readers with proof driven thinking. Most of them are activists in the guise Journalist who want to promote their own ideology. They mentally deny the real cause of fast growth in Ethiopia because both governments are regimes so they unintentional hide the truth.

2.Chinese government don't want to be to visible so the nation building is less likely to be interrupted. The international community won't see Chinese effort as an mutual beneficial economic activity but as an expansion to gain regional influence like Soviet Union or Iran because international community is largely brain washed by Orwell's works like 1984 which used to be valid many years ago and still valuable but not applicable everywhere any more.

[1]I have a old friend did consulting job helping policy making for Ethiopia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou_Industrial_Park

[3] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/968608879914270721?lang=...

[ende]

It’s really not polite to celebrate colonialism.

[_emacsomancer_]

Ethiopia is one African country that was never really colonised - though it was occupied by Mussolinian Italy for a few years.

[jeffreyrogers]

This isn't colonialism.