As of April 2023, the sum of exports and imports between Africa and China was measured at roughly **** million U.S. dollars. Chinese exports to the African continent totaled approximately **** million U.S. dollars that same month, while items imported from Africa to the Asian country reached around *** million U.S. dollars.

China Export: Africa data was reported at 104.911 USD bn in 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 94.718 USD bn for 2017. China Export: Africa data is updated yearly, averaging 6.006 USD bn from Dec 1984 (Median) to 2018, with 35 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 108.541 USD bn in 2015 and a record low of 559.520 USD mn in 1985. China Export: Africa data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by General Administration of Customs. The data is categorized under Global Database’s China – Table CN.JA: Trade: Annual.

As of 2023, exports from China into Africa accumulated to roughly *** billion U.S. dollars. The value increased from *** billion U.S. dollars in the previous year, reaching a new peak. Overall, Chinese trade with African countries has increased in the last two decades. In 2000, Africa imported items from the Asian country at **** billion U.S. dollars.

Exports to Africa in China decreased to 11531679.08 USD Thousand in February from 17250055.19 USD Thousand in January of 2024. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for China Exports To Africa.

This dataset is a representation of China–Africa trade flows, created to simulate real-time monitoring and decision-making environments. It reflects heterogeneous, high-velocity data typically generated from customs declarations, logistics records, trade documentation, and market price feeds.

Each record corresponds to a shipment transaction and captures details such as shipment identifiers, trade partners, commodity type, HS code, declared and contract values, transport mode, transit details, payment terms, exchange rates, and market indicators. To support analytical tasks, the dataset includes a target column (anomaly_flag) indicating:

0 = Normal transaction

1 = Anomalous transaction (e.g., unusual delays, mismatched values, abnormal exchange rates, or excessive volatility).

This dataset provides a scalable and flexible foundation for exploring real-time data analysis, anomaly detection, and decision-support applications in international trade.

Key Features

Multi-source trade data – Customs, logistics, documentation, and market attributes combined.

Comprehensive details – Covers shipment IDs, HS codes, commodity types, values, transit times, and exchange rates.

Target variable – anomaly_flag supports supervised classification and anomaly detection research.

Large-scale records – 10,000+ entries designed to mimic continuous trade streams.

Balanced data distribution – Normal and anomalous samples included for robust analysis.

Cross-border coverage – Simulates trade interactions between China and multiple African countries.

Realistic patterns – Includes normal operations alongside injected anomalies to reflect real-world complexities.

Key information about South Africa Total Exports to China

• South Africa Total Exports to China recorded 934.436 USD mn in Jan 2025, compared with 997.883 USD mn in the previous month
• South Africa Total Exports to China data is updated monthly, available from Jan 1998 to Jan 2025, with an averaged value of 574.478 USD mn
• The data reached an all-time high of 1.698 USD bn in Mar 2018 and a record low of 4.921 USD mn in Aug 1998

CEIC converts monthly Total Exports to China into USD. The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition provides Total Exports to China, FOB, in local currency. The Federal Reserve Board average market exchange rate is used for currency conversions. Total Exports to China prior to January 2009 is sourced from the International Monetary Fund.

China Exports to South Africa was US$21.81 Billion during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. China Exports to South Africa - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on December of 2025.

Figure 3 depicts China-Africa trade from 2000 to 2013. It shows that China-Africa trade consistently grew since the formation of the FOCAC in 2000. As can be seen in the figure, the US trade with Africa declined after the 2008 global financial crisis, allowing China to take the lead as Africa's largest trading partner. Figure 7 shows trade between China and Africa from 2003 to 2021. Although with fluctuations, trade between the two sides has been increasing since the establishment of the FOCAC mechanism. It reached a first high of US$203 billion in 2015 and then declined significantly the following year. However, the trade increased again from 2017 and surged to US$254 billion in 2021, up by 35% from the previous year. The high trade volume in 2021 has been attributed to the additional Chinese exports of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs), such as masks and hazmat suits, as well as pharmaceutical products and testing equipment for the COVID-19 pandemic to Africa. However, Gu et al (2022: 11) indicated that the strong increase in China-Africa trade volume in 2021 is remarkable as data from China's customs agency shows that it is "made up of an increase in both Chinese exports to Africa (29.9% year-on-year) and African exports to China (43.7% year-on-year)". Figure 4 shows the number of countries around the world that have joined China's Belt and Road Initiatiative (BRI). As can be seen in the figure, China's BRI has attracted more than 140 countries. In Africa, the first countries that signed up for the BRI project were East and North African countries such as Kenya, Djibouti, Tanzania and Egypt. In Figure 5, the map shows the number of African countries that have signed up for the BRI since 2015. As can be seen in the figure, 52 countries in Africa had signed some BRI-related Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China by 2022.

Table 1 shows that studies that analysed the China-Africa relationship focusing on their 'strategic partnership' are very few, given the voluminous literature on China and Africa. A search of Sino-Africa studies conducted in English with the term 'strategic partnership' in their titles produced only ten papers (see table). Furthermore, as the table shows, studies investigating the increased security cooperation in China-Africa relations conducted in English are rare, although this part of the debate has also produced numerous research publications. The column titled 'Focus of study' in Table 1 above shows that majority of these studies concentrated on analysing economic cooperation, while a few also included political relations between China and Africa. Also, the column titled 'Definition of strategic partnership' shows that, all these studies, except Akpan and Onya (2018), made no attempts to define the concept of strategic partnership. Figure 8 shows the countries around the world in which the United Nations (UN) has deployed its peacekeepers. As shown in the figure, the UN has deployed several peacekeeping missions around the world since the late 1940s, with most of these operations taking place in the African continent. Figure 9 focuses on the UN’s peacekeeping operations in Africa. As can be seen in the figure, Chinese peacekeeping troops were deployed in five out of the seven UN-led missions on the African continent as of 2019. Figure 12 shows the foreign military bases that currently exist in African countries. As the figure shows, the African Continent is a host to 47 known foreign military bases, of which 34 are United States (US) bases. Figure 13 shows the foreign military bases in Djibouti. As seen in the figure, Djibouti hosts the US' Camp Lemonnier military base, just 13.4 kilometres away from the Chinese PLA's new navy facility, along with military bases of other major powers such as France, Germany and Japan in close proximity. Djibouti thus found itself in the middle of diplomatic tensions between China and the US over fears of a Chinese takeover of the Doraleh Container Terminal, Djibouti's main container port, in 2018, as China financed the development of the port. Figure 6 shows China's Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) commitments from 2006 to 2021. As can be seen in the figure, China's financial pledges to assist Africa increased from US$5 billion to US$60 in 2015. However, they dropped to US$40 billion in 2021. Further, drops in the number of activities, such as official development assistance (ODAs) and capacity building, including reductions in security collaborations, were also noted. However, a new development was China's reallocation of US$10 billion of its Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) towards Africa from the US$40 billion that it received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

South Africa Exports to China was US$12.41 Billion during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. South Africa Exports to China - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on October of 2025.

China Import: Africa: Djibouti data was reported at 1.628 USD mn in Mar 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.814 USD mn for Feb 2025. China Import: Africa: Djibouti data is updated monthly, averaging 0.007 USD mn from Jan 2001 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 291 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 20.203 USD mn in Mar 2023 and a record low of 0.000 USD mn in May 2019. China Import: Africa: Djibouti data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by General Administration of Customs. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s International Trade – Table CN.JA: USD: Trade by Country.

This statistic shows the number of Chinese enterprises abroad in 2024, by continent. At the end of 2024, there were 5,689 Chinese companies in North America, whereas 4,119 Chinese enterprises were in Latin American countries.

China Imports from South Africa was US$30.6 Billion during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. China Imports from South Africa - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on December of 2025.

As of 2021, exports from African countries to China accumulated to nearly *** billion U.S. dollars. The value declined compared to 2020 when exports from Africa to the Asian country amounted to roughly ** billion U.S. dollars. In the last two decades, trade with China, regarding exports from African countries, fluctuated but overall increased strongly. For instance, in 2000, African exports to China yielded only *** billion U.S. dollars.

As of 2021, Nigeria and South Africa were the main importers from China in Africa. The two African countries imported from the Asian partner some **** billion and **** billion U.S. dollars, respectively. Chinese exports to Egypt followed closely, with a value of **** billion U.S. dollars. Overall, the trade between African countries and China has been increasing in the last two decades. In 2020, Chinese exports to Africa were valued at ****** billion U.S. dollars.

China Export: Africa: South Africa data was reported at 1.755 USD bn in Mar 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 1.133 USD bn for Feb 2025. China Export: Africa: South Africa data is updated monthly, averaging 1.095 USD bn from Jan 2001 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 291 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2.434 USD bn in Apr 2023 and a record low of 58.508 USD mn in Jan 2001. China Export: Africa: South Africa data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by General Administration of Customs. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s International Trade – Table CN.JA: USD: Trade by Country.

China Export: Africa: Nigeria data was reported at 2.151 USD bn in Mar 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 1.092 USD bn for Feb 2025. China Export: Africa: Nigeria data is updated monthly, averaging 814.839 USD mn from Jan 2001 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 291 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2.484 USD bn in Aug 2021 and a record low of 41.947 USD mn in Jan 2001. China Export: Africa: Nigeria data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by General Administration of Customs. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s International Trade – Table CN.JA: USD: Trade by Country.

The mining and quarrying industry is vital to the global economy, providing essential raw materials for many sectors. China is a major importer of African minerals, deepening trade ties with Africa and shaping the economic and political landscape of the two regions. This study examines the economic and institutional factors that affect Africa-China mining and quarrying trade flows from 2010 to 2021, using a trade gravity model with methods such as Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), Random Effects, ET-Tobit, EK-Tobit, Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) and Multinomial Poisson Maximum Likelihood (MPML. The results showed that the quality of institutions, especially the level of corruption, played a key role, with high levels of corruption associated with a reduction of up to 34.5% in exports in Africa and 51% in imports in China. Key economic factors, including GDP, the net barter trade index and Chinese FDI, have a positive impact on Africa's export capacity, while population size and GDP per capita show mixed effects on trade dynamics. The present study provides actionable policy recommendations for improving governance in the mining sector, strengthening trade partnerships and promoting sustainable development.

As of 2021, South Africa was the main African exporter to China in terms of value. South African exports to the Asian country amounted to around ** billion U.S. dollars. Moreover, Angola exports to China were valued at some **** billion U.S. dollars, while exports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo reached ** billion U.S. dollars.

South Africa Imports from China of Rice was US$288.16 Thousand during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. South Africa Imports from China of Rice - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on October of 2025.

Central African Republic Exports to China was US$27.25 Thousand during 2024, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. Central African Republic Exports to China - data, historical chart and statistics - was last updated on December of 2025.