Study title

This survey was administered by Tanzania’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in conjunction with their Annual Survey of Industrial Production (ASIP) in 2016. The survey was administered to plant managers and was designed to elicit information about (i) formal links between foreign and domestic firms; (ii) the mechanisms by which knowledge is transferred and (iii) the benefits obtained from foreign firms.For the past decade, Sub-Saharan Africa has been growing, yet growth is not the same as structural transformation. China's development trajectory since 1980 provides an example of how a government focused on modernization can marshal foreign capital and technology to assist in the reduction of poverty and economic transformation in manufacturing and agriculture. In Africa, China is largely seen as a competitor for local firms, primarily through imports. This competition can be devastating in some countries and some sectors, driving local firms out of business. Yet on the other hand, growing Chinese investment in African manufacturing and contract farming can also offer opportunities for joint ventures with local firms, training, and diffusion of more productive technologies. If this were to follow Asian experience, Chinese firms could be catalysts for local firms to move into manufactured exports, although they might also be footloose investors, moving on with only fleeting impact on local knowledge. In agriculture, Chinese investment might also be enclave, with little connection to local farmers - the picture presented in fears of "land grabbing" - or it might follow the pattern laid out by foreign investors in China, with out-growers, demonstration farms, and technology and skills transfers. Our earlier research suggested that Chinese firms are thinking strategically about backward linkages. For example, at least five Chinese shoe manufacturers we interviewed in 2009 had moved their shoe-making assembly lines to Nigeria, while still importing...