The “Belt and Road” Initiative and Sino-African Infrastructure Cooperation

　　Infrastructure is the core area of ​​the “Belt and Road” initiative. There is serious shortage of infrastructure supply and strong willingness to promote infrastructure construction in current African countries. Comparing with African countries, China has strong competitiveness in infrastructure construction and abundant foreign exchange assets. Therefore, China and Africa can conduct in-depth cooperation in terms of infrastructure construction, investment, financing and operation, driving the development of African manufacturing through the infrastructure cooperation. However, in the context of the sluggish international commodity prices, the huge capital expenditure in infrastructure has outreached the fiscal capacity of governments in some African countries. At the same time, some Western countries have criticized China's overseas development financing for bringing "debt traps" to African countries.

　　Taking the dual dilemma of shortage in infrastructure and fund in Africa as the logical starting point, the project will employ approaches of field research, typical cases and comparative analysis, describe the capacity and demand of infrastructure investment in Africa, analyze the current situations and features of China’s investments for infrastructures in Africa, evaluate the risks and challenges facing China-Africa infrastructure cooperation, discuss the balance point between China’s rising presence in Africa and African countries' infrastructure expansion and debt sustainability, stress China’s investment and financing modes for carrying out infrastructure construction in Africa, explore the operation mechanism and applicable fields of existing investment and financing modes as well as the feasibility of applying more international financing tools to the construction of African infrastructures in a broader international view, and propose a package of policies and suggestions for deepening Sino-African infrastructure cooperation.