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Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Barriers to Technology Transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa: Innovation Capacity and Knowledge Absorption in Senegal

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Globalization and Development

Part of the book series: Contributions to Economics ((CE))

Abstract

Innovation capacity and knowledge absorption are recognized in the literature as two fundamental enablers to achieve growth through innovation. Technology transfer is based on knowledge absorption that is crucial in the innovation process. In African countries, especially sub-Saharan countries, technology transfer is even more important since it allows countries to emerge from poverty and weak economic growth. Do China-Senegal partnerships favor Senegal’s innovation capacity building? This chapter will review the importance of knowledge absorption and the difficulty of its construction in Senegal, before studying the links between Senegal and China. Although the Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in Senegal are growing in recent years, the relations between the two countries remain an opportunistic relation rather than a real transfer of knowledge.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Chinese term generally used to refer to public enterprises is translated into English as state-owned enterprises. It designates enterprises governed by Article 82 of the Chinese Civil Code which are enterprises under the so-called “whole people” property regime and are subject to public law for their management.

  2. 2.

    FDI net outflows or outbound direct investment are the value of outward direct investment made by the residents of the reporting economy to external economies. ODI include assets and liabilities transferred between resident direct investors and their direct investment enterprises. It also covers transfers of assets and liabilities between resident and nonresident fellow enterprises, if the ultimate controlling parent is resident.

  3. 3.

    Source: The Observatory of Economic Complexity, https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France

    Vanessa Casadella

  2. Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation (RRI), Dunkirk, France

    Vanessa Casadella & Zeting Liu

Authors
  1. Vanessa Casadella
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  2. Zeting Liu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vanessa Casadella .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cambridge, MA, USA

    Nezameddin Faghih

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Casadella, V., Liu, Z. (2019). Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Barriers to Technology Transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa: Innovation Capacity and Knowledge Absorption in Senegal. In: Faghih, N. (eds) Globalization and Development. Contributions to Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14370-1_9

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