Labour inspectors in Lusaka, who monitor sweatshops, have use of only one car and recently it was broken for four months. In the meantime Chinese engineers built an entire cluster of garment factories from scratch.
The saga of the Chinese economic colonization of Africa really is amazing. I have written about it before. The feature that was not apparent a few years ago is the amount of individual entrepreneurial activity, in addition to the big state companies. The big companies are still digging resources and building roads, but we also see individual Chinese families going to Africa to open shops, just like they used to come to the USA.
This small-scale investment is going to be good for Africa, generating more benefits for the people than resource extraction. Any large influx of capital investment and managerial skill will help an economy.
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