Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Export Upgrading in Africa

This article examines the association between Chinese outward foreign direct investment and African export upgrading, distinguishing changes in export composition from changes in the global income scale used to value products. Investment data cover 2007–2024, with a common estimation sample of 51 African countries over 2010–2024. Country and year fixed-effects models compare flows and stocks across total and manufacturing exports using annual and fixed product-income scores. Annual flows show no systematic positive association across the reported specifications. A positive stock association with fixed-score manufacturing income content weakens with additional controls and does not survive the main stock-family multiplicity adjustment. Product-level accounting across 53 countries shows that annual-score manufacturing income content rises while fixed-score income content falls in 19 economies. In 20 countries, annual-score increases coincide with a negative export-composition contribution. The results show that measured upgrading can reflect global product revaluation despite adverse basket reallocation. This distinction changes the assessment of African export upgrading and provides a more precise basis for interpreting its conditional association with Chinese investment.