【英文】南非国际事务研究所报告：中国对非洲一带一路投资的经济影响评估（43页）

African countries face a huge deficit in terms of the stock and quality of infrastructure  and this has contributed significantly to economic underdevelopment on the continent.  SSA is the region with the lowest road density (measured as kilometres of road per  surface area of a country) and road quality, based on the World Economic Forum (WEF)  Global Competitiveness Index on infrastructure quality. The region also lacks large-scale  infrastructure, which is necessary for regional integration and expansion of intraregional  trade.13 The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimated that meeting the continent’s  infrastructure needs will cost between $130 and $170 billion per year.China-led infrastructure development in Africa is therefore a crucial vehicle for closing the  financing gap and boosting intraregional development. 

According to data from Johns  Hopkins University, African governments received some $148 billion in Chinese loans  between 2000 and 2018, much of it for large-scale infrastructure projects.15 The quantum of  the loans has gradually increased and over the past five years has amounted to about  $2 billion per year. Chinese infrastructure investment comes in various modalities, including  concessionary and non-concessionary loans, grants and FDI. Chinese infrastructure investment can also be viewed through pre-BRI and BRI lenses. Prior  to the BRI, Chinese investment largely took place through bilateral arrangements and was  mostly targeted at in-country infrastructure. The BRI promised to scale up both in-country  and cross-country infrastructural development. As the BRI extends beyond Africa, the  expansion of infrastructure networks that link Africa to other continents will also be possible  in the future.