Since the turn of this millennium, Chinese outbound direct investment (ODI) into Zambia has grown at phenomenal rate. While this has provided a valuable source of capital for the Zambian economy, it has also created much controversy (or public debate) — to the level of the Presidential elections - with a number of high-profile cases pointing to the poor environmental, labour and occupational health and safety standards of Chinese investors in Zambia.

The rapid growth of Chinese ODI into Zambia has coincided with some significant changes to Zambia’s regulatory regime, both ‘before the border’ and ‘behind the border’. This raises a number of questions, including how, if at all, the actions of Chinese companies operating on Zambian soil have influenced Zambia’s regulatory change; and vice-versa how, if at all, these regulatory changes have influenced the subsequent actions of those companies? And what is the role of key actors on these major regulatory changes? And on changes in the activities of Chinese investors — that’s how do we explain changes in the actions of Chines companies in Zambia that were not driving by Zambian regulations?

This thesis will attempt to answer these questions with a focus on the activities of Chinese mining companies and four major regulatory changes since 2000 – to the Industrial and Labour Relations Act in 2008 and 2011, the Occupational Health and Safety Act in 2010, the Environmental Management Act in 2011, and the Minimum Wage bill in 2012. The thesis will reveal not only the interactions between state and business actors during the process of regulatory change, but also the complex interactions between these and other key actors, including the media, trade unions, NGOs, the International Labour Organisation and the Chinese government

About the Speaker

Beyongo Mukete Dynamic is a political economist focused on a range of Sino-African trade and investment issues. He is a PhD candidate at the Australian Centre on China in the World, ANU. Beyongo completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Yaounde II-Soa, Cameroon, and the Cherkassy State Technological University, Ukraine. He is undertaking research on local responses to growing Chinese outbound investment in Australia and Zambia, FDI regulatory changes Zambia, and Chinese investors’ responses to these changes, since 2000.