I was flying between cities in Africa and I got a hold of the local airline magazine to catch up on the regional news. Most of the articles in the magazine were about investment pouring into Africa. Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria and other parts of West Africa are swimming in oil. Not surprising, China is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into Africa to upgrade telecommunications, energy production and other infrastructure services (shipyards, roads, pipelines, etc) to get at the oil.

China currently gets about 30% of their oil from Africa and within the next few years, China will be getting 40% of their oil from the African continent. I’m not sure where that leaves the rest of the world’s straws poking for oil. I spoke to a bloke who informed me that China actually has troops stationed in various parts of Africa to protect their investment. I guess this is analogous to the US having troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other places in between.

Needless to say, money is pouring into West Africa and its not surprising; what else is China supposed to do with trillions of US dollars?

On a side note, one of the better restaurants I visited during my stay was a Chinese restaurant. Go figure, they had the best food that I’d eaten my entire time there!