Rising costs in China make African entrepreneurs look to Vietnam

African businesses started flooding to Guangzhou City after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the South China Morning Post said on May 7.

Migration from Africa has risen as China "has stepped up its diplomatic links and investments with the continent," the newspaper explained.

In 2009, local media put the African population in Guangzhou at 100,000, including those who had overstayed their visas, it said.

Guangzhou draws merchants who come to buy goods such as jewelry and electronics in bulk, which they ship back to their homelands, according to AFP.

A part of the city has even been given the name "Little Africa."

But things have changed.

The city’s African population had dropped to 10,344 in February last year, the South China Morning Post cited the municipal bureau of public security as saying, though Liang Yucheng, a professor of social sciences and humanities at Sun Yat-sen University, told the newspaper that there were still nearly 20,000 African traders in Guangzhou.

Felly Mwamba, a leader of the Congolese community in Guangzhou, said one of the main reasons for this was rising costs, listing visa fees air tickets and other living expenses.

"Most African trade with China is basic goods, like clothes, shoes, electrical appliances and low-end smartphones. Prices, logistics and living costs are all soaring in China,” a Kenyan trader identified as Don said.

“Every day among the African community in Guangzhou, more and more have people started talking about going home or exploring new markets like India, Vietnam and Cambodia,” he said.

The other reason for the falling African population in Guangzhou, as pointed out by Xinhua news agency in January, is that "police have tightened enforcement on illegal immigration."

Long-time African residents told AFP that they have seen their compatriots lapse into "illegal" status after struggling with visa renewal requirements.

Nigerians must submit criminal record checks for all work and student visas, and no African countries are eligible for 72-hour or 144-hour transit visa exemptions, unlike visitors from many other nations.

"My friend had to go home to give fingerprints for a criminal record check. A return flight costs US$2,000. By the time he got all his documents in order, his visa had expired," said Akubakarr Sajor Barrie, director of an import-export company.

"For a small business owner, this is really hard. People are starting to wonder if doing business in China is worth it and they're going to countries like Turkey and Vietnam instead," he was quoted by AFP as saying.

Official data from the labor ministry showed the number of foreign workers in Vietnam grew by more than 12,600 in 2004 to 83,500 in 2015, and 93% of them are legal.

Those foreigners come from 110 different markets, and most of them are from China, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan.

Vietnam was named among the top 10 destinations for expats in a ranking released in March to aim at guiding the world’s rising number of modern nomads.

The country was placed ninth on the InterNations’ 2018 Expat Insider survey, climbing three spots from last year.

More than four in five expats, or 81%, described the Vietnamese people as welcoming, and 73% said it was easy to settle down in the country, the survey found.

Of the expats questioned, 56% said they had found it easy to make friends with locals, and 16% said they planned to stay forever.