Drivers of China's Foreign Direct Investment into Africa: How specific?

Chinese FDI into Africa has grown tremendously in recent years. In this paper we assess the determinants of that investment and compare them with the determinants of global FDI into Africa. Among other results, we conclude that, for Chinese FDI, the presence of oil and macroeconomic stability are important; for global FDI, the presence of oil does not seem relevant but macroeconomic stability seems to be relevant. Institutional variables are not significant in any case, which means that the popular notion that Chinese outward FDI brings "no strings attached" also applies to the world's FDI from the perspective of governance. Finally, we have found FDI-Aid complementarities in both cases, which implies that, in this sense, actually there are "strings attached".