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Careful with this comparison, Africa is still mostly a continent of primary resources and factories, so it would more natural that their trade balance be positi

• baybal2 8y ago
  No, it is far from being positive, yet compare it to Saudi Arabia. On resource exports: The logic that resource economies must have positive trade balances as a rule did not stand reality check. One may think that the amount of imports a resource economy can afford is not elastic in relation to their main export because they don't have any industry to produce basic living necessities. In reality, what happens is the opposite: once few rich run away with what little hard currency the country had, the remaining people can't even buy those basic living necessities with debt, as their debt is worthless. Example: Venizuela And reverse, when rich in those countries bathe in cash from resource exports, they spare no money for dumb excesses like gold plated Rolls Royces, and vaporize their trade surpluses very fast. You had to see Moscow in the time when oil was hitting $130... And... quite a few African countries without any resource exports do have neutral trade balances with China, despite China being their biggest trade partner