US companies are catching up with China in Africa for a market that they have neglected for decades…
According to the WSJ piece,
While most U.S. companies focused international expansions on Asia and Latin America, China was leapfrogging America in Africa. China's exports to Africa last year totaled about $54 billion, up from $5.6 billion a decade before, according to the IMF. U.S. exports to Africa totaled $21 billion last year, up from $7.6 billion in 2000.
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Western European companies, many of which had lingering business interests in Africa from colonial days, also took their eye off the ball. Western Europe's share of overall trade—the sum of imports and exports—with sub-Saharan Africa dropped to 30% in 2009 from 52% in 1990, according to McKinsey. The share of China and other Asian countries in Africa trade more than doubled to 30% from 14% in the same period, while North America's share slipped to 13% from 16%.