Treadway Mobilizes $500 Million Chinese Investor Network to Accelerate Africa’s Green Industrial Revolution

Global investment banking firm Treadway is stepping up efforts to channel Chinese capital into African markets, targeting large-scale investments to support industrialization, energy and infrastructure development across a continent experiencing unprecedented demand for electricity and facing critical power shortages that constrain economic growth and job creation opportunities for rapidly expanding youth populations.

The Hong Kong-based firm is engaging governments and private sector players in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, focusing on sectors such as renewable energy, manufacturing, transport and logistics, agriculture and financial services, positioning itself as a crucial intermediary connecting Chinese capital with Africa’s vast infrastructure needs and development aspirations while navigating complex regulatory environments and political dynamics across multiple jurisdictions.

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Treadway Chief Executive Officer Mandal Lamba said the firm is currently working with 37 Chinese investors and plans to grow the pool to 100 by 2028, with each investor capable of financing projects of up to $500 million, creating a potential pipeline of up to $50 billion in investment capital that could transform infrastructure landscapes and accelerate economic development across participating African nations over the next three years.

“This creates a strong pipeline of capital for commercially viable projects across Africa,” Lamba said, emphasizing the firm’s focus on identifying projects with solid financial fundamentals and sustainable business models rather than pursuing speculative ventures or projects lacking clear paths to profitability. The strategy represents a shift toward market-driven investment approaches that prioritize economic returns alongside development impact, moving beyond traditional aid-based models that have characterized earlier phases of Africa-China economic engagement.

Proven Track Record with Agilitee Electric Vehicle Success

The strategy has already borne fruit in South Africa, where electric vehicle and green technology manufacturer Agilitee secured funding from a Chinese investor after a delegation led by Treadway visited China alongside South African government officials, demonstrating the firm’s effectiveness in facilitating complex cross-border transactions and navigating the intricacies of international investment negotiations.

Agilitee, Africa’s first electric vehicle manufacturer, has signed strategic partnerships with Chinese companies including Guangzhou Thunder International Investment Company Limited for the supply of 40,000 electric scooters to be distributed across multiple African nations including Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Lesotho, marking a major boost for sustainable mobility and job creation on the continent.

Under the agreement finalized after seven months of negotiations, Guangzhou Thunder will supply 10,000 electric scooters annually to South Africa over four years, with the initiative aiming to improve access to affordable transport while creating economic opportunities for individuals through flexible installment plans of 12 to 36 months where repayments are covered by income generated from delivery services rather than requiring upfront capital that many potential users cannot afford.

Dr. Mandla Lamba, Agilitee’s Chief Executive Officer, explained that “our goal was to find a partner who truly understands the economic hardships Africans face—rising inflation, stagnant wages, and job losses. Through this agreement, people can now own scooters without digging deep into their pockets. The money they earn from deliveries will cover the instalments,” addressing a critical barrier to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to participate in the rapidly growing last-mile delivery economy.

In a separate deal facilitated by Treadway’s network, Agilitee and Guangzhou Thunder launched Explore Group Africa, a joint venture that will see the construction of an assembly plant for electric scooters in South Africa where Agilitee holds a 35 percent stake with Guangzhou Thunder owning the remaining 65 percent, creating local manufacturing capacity and employment opportunities while reducing dependence on fully imported vehicles.

Investor Focus on Renewable Energy and Green Technology

Investor interest is strongest in green energy projects including solar, wind and geothermal, alongside electric mobility, real estate, banking, agriculture and logistics, reflecting global trends toward sustainable development and clean energy transitions while responding to acute electricity deficits affecting industrial production, household consumption, and social service delivery across much of the African continent.

Several African countries facing power shortages are prioritizing these sectors to drive industrial growth and job creation, recognizing that reliable electricity access serves as a fundamental prerequisite for attracting foreign direct investment, supporting manufacturing activities, enabling digital economy growth, and improving living standards for rapidly urbanizing populations seeking better economic opportunities.

“Africa is increasingly viewed as a long-term growth market with solid fundamentals,” Lamba said, pointing to demographic advantages including the world’s youngest population, ongoing urbanization trends creating new consumer markets, expanding middle-class segments with increasing purchasing power, abundant natural resources including critical minerals for green technologies, and improving governance frameworks in many countries that enhance business operating environments.

China’s Expanding Renewable Energy Footprint in Africa

China’s engagement with Africa’s energy sector has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years, with renewable energy accounting for 59 percent of the 49 energy projects announced in Africa in 2024 by Chinese companies according to a report by ODI Global, reflecting a decisive shift away from fossil fuels toward clean energy technologies as China aligns its overseas investment strategies with global climate commitments and domestic industrial priorities.

The shift reflects rising electricity demand on the continent and the growing availability of low-cost wind and solar technologies that have achieved price parity with conventional generation sources in many contexts. Since 2021, the Chinese government has officially stopped financing new coal-fired power plants abroad, marking a significant policy reversal that fundamentally altered the composition of China’s energy engagement portfolio across developing countries.

Between 2010 and 2021, African countries received $65 billion in renewable energy financing from China, representing roughly one-third of the global renewable energy loan portfolio that China extended to foreign governments or companies during that period. The scale of this financial commitment positions China as arguably the single most important external financier of Africa’s energy transition, surpassing traditional development partners in many contexts.

Overall, Africa accounted for 20 percent of Chinese renewable energy investments and construction contracts in 2024, demonstrating sustained strategic interest in the continent’s energy transformation despite competing investment opportunities in other emerging markets. About 60 percent of the projects funded in Africa were valued below $100 million, while 15 percent required more than $500 million in investment, indicating a diversified portfolio spanning utility-scale installations and smaller distributed generation systems.

From 2020 to 2024, Chinese exports of solar and wind technology to Africa surged by 153 percent, reflecting both increased project implementation and technology cost reductions that have made renewable energy increasingly competitive. Technology exports are growing especially quickly as African countries seek to build local manufacturing and assembly capacity rather than relying entirely on imported turnkey systems.

In Kenya specifically, China accounted for 96 percent of solar panels, 81 percent of lithium-ion batteries and 21 percent of electric vehicles imported in 2024, underscoring the dominant market position Chinese manufacturers have achieved across clean energy supply chains. Between 2010 and 2024, a total of 44 Chinese projects were implemented in Kenya, primarily in the construction of transmission lines and generating capacities including landmark installations like the Olkaria IV geothermal power plant and the 50-megawatt Garissa solar park.

Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Commitments

At the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese leader Xi Jinping emphasized his commitment to thirty projects related to clean energy as part of a broader package supporting diverse aspects of the continent’s development. The summit resulted in adoption of the Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027), which includes a $50.7 billion investment pledge to support infrastructure investment, security exchanges, and development cooperation across multiple sectors.

During the forum, discussions encompassed investment amounts and projects as well as an alliance to promote a “revolution” toward renewable energies, with China committing to work toward “[e]nvironmentally respectful modernization” and assistance in “building green growth engines” across Africa, according to official communiqués released following the high-level meetings that brought together heads of state and senior officials from 53 African countries.

The Africa Solar Belt Program, a key initiative under FOCAC, aims to provide 100 million yuan (approximately $14 million) in public funds between 2024 and 2027 to supply 50,000 African households with off-grid solar home systems, addressing energy poverty in rural areas where grid extension remains economically unviable while supporting interventions that can improve livelihoods of local populations through powering schools, health facilities, and small businesses.

From 2020 to 2024, Chinese investments totaling over $33 billion have delivered over 32 gigawatts of power generation capacity across 30 African countries according to analysis by the China-Global South Project, underscoring China’s role as a key driver of Africa’s energy transition and its ability to adapt to local contexts while addressing infrastructure needs through flexible financing structures.

Analysis of 84 identified projects reveals a concentration in Southern Africa with 35 projects, followed by West Africa with 22 projects, East Africa with 16 projects, Central Africa with 6 projects, and North Africa with 5 projects, demonstrating geographic diversification while reflecting regional variations in electricity demand, resource endowments, regulatory environments, and political stability that affect investment viability.

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Evolving Investment Models and Financing Structures

Globally, both state-owned and private Chinese companies now prefer engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts over taking direct equity stakes in energy projects, a trend that is even more evident in high-risk markets like Africa, where construction contracts represent 85 percent of Chinese energy activities compared to only 15 percent involving acquisition of ownership interests.

This shift reflects risk management strategies by Chinese firms seeking to minimize exposure to currency fluctuations, political instability, regulatory changes, and demand uncertainty that characterize many African electricity markets. EPC contracts provide more predictable revenue streams and shorter payback periods compared to merchant power plants that depend on long-term power purchase agreements with utilities that may face creditworthiness challenges.

The structure of China’s renewable lending is also changing, with loans shifting away from concessional terms offered by state policy banks and increasingly involving commercial lenders such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China, reflecting maturation of China’s overseas development finance ecosystem and growing participation by profit-oriented financial institutions alongside policy-driven lenders.

Treadway said its approach prioritizes public-private partnerships and long-term equity investments rather than debt financing, distinguishing its model from traditional loan-based infrastructure finance that has drawn criticism for contributing to debt sustainability challenges in some African countries. The firm emphasizes sustainable financing structures rather than debt-heavy approaches while keeping ownership and value creation anchored within African markets.

Broader Context of Chinese Economic Engagement in Africa

In the past two decades, China has catapulted from being a relatively small investor in Africa to becoming the continent’s largest economic partner, with Africa-China trade growing at approximately 20 percent per year since the turn of the millennium. Foreign direct investment has grown even faster over the past decade with a breakneck annual growth rate of 40 percent through the mid-2010s, though growth rates have moderated more recently.

China has increased its investment in Africa over the last four decades with flows surging from $75 million in 2003 to $5 billion in 2021, though these official figures likely understate true investment levels due to measurement challenges and data gaps. This has had both positive and negative impacts on Africa, with infrastructure improvement, job creation, and overall economic growth listed as positive results while concerns persist about debt sustainability, environmental standards, labor practices, and geopolitical implications.

Through this process, China has become Africa’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than $282 billion in trade in 2022, representing a dramatic shift in a continent that historically depended overwhelmingly on Europe for trade relationships. Approximately 16 percent of Africa’s total manufacturing imports came from China in 2018, displacing traditional suppliers from former colonial powers.

Twenty-five economic and trade cooperation zones have been created with China in sixteen African countries, with such zones registered with China’s Ministry of Commerce attracting 623 businesses with a total investment of $7.35 billion by the end of 2020. These cooperation zones have boosted local industrialization in various sectors including natural resources, agriculture, manufacturing, and trade and logistics.

Around 90 percent of Chinese firms operating in Africa are privately owned, calling into question the notion of a monolithic, state-coordinated investment drive by “China, Inc.” Although state-owned enterprises tend to be bigger particularly in specific sectors such as energy and infrastructure, the sheer number of private Chinese firms working toward their own profit motives suggests that Chinese investment in Africa is a more market-driven phenomenon than is commonly understood.

Chinese firms operate across many sectors of the African economy, with nearly a third involved in manufacturing, a quarter in services, and around a fifth each in trade and in construction and real estate. In manufacturing, estimates indicate that 12 percent of Africa’s industrial production—valued at some $500 billion annually—is already handled by Chinese firms, representing a substantial footprint in the continent’s productive economy.

Facilitating Capital Markets Access

Treadway is also facilitating funding for African firms that meet listing requirements on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with plans for cross-listings on Chinese exchanges to provide African companies with access to deeper capital markets and more diverse investor bases. Cross-listing strategies can enhance liquidity, improve corporate governance through dual regulatory oversight, and raise company profiles among international investors.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange represents Africa’s most developed and liquid capital market, serving as a gateway for companies across Southern Africa and increasingly attracting listings from other regions. Facilitating access to Chinese exchanges could open new funding sources for African companies while providing Chinese investors with direct exposure to African growth opportunities through publicly traded securities rather than private equity or project finance structures.

Sustainable Development and Local Value Creation

The firm said its model focuses on sustainable financing structures rather than debt-heavy approaches while keeping ownership and value creation anchored within African markets, addressing critiques that some Chinese infrastructure projects have generated limited local economic benefits beyond construction phase employment or have resulted in asset ownership transferring to foreign entities following debt distress.

This emphasis on sustainability and local value retention aligns with evolving African perspectives on foreign investment that prioritize technology transfer, skills development, local content requirements, and long-term partnership models over extractive arrangements that primarily benefit external actors. African governments and civil society organizations have become increasingly sophisticated in negotiating investment terms that maximize domestic development impacts.

According to McKinsey research, at Chinese companies operating in Africa, 89 percent of employees were African, adding up to nearly 300,000 jobs in surveyed firms alone. Scaled up across all 10,000 Chinese firms estimated to operate on the continent, this suggests that Chinese-owned businesses employ several million Africans, representing a substantial contribution to job creation though questions remain about job quality, wage levels, and career advancement opportunities.

Moreover, nearly two-thirds of Chinese employers provided some kind of skills training to their African workforce, contributing to human capital development that can benefit both individual employees and broader economies as trained workers potentially move to other employers or establish their own businesses applying acquired skills and knowledge.

Sector-Specific Investment Opportunities

In Kenya, Chinese-backed initiatives are targeting the development of transport corridors, digital infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare and geothermal energy, reflecting the country’s strategic position as East Africa’s economic hub and its relatively developed infrastructure and business environment compared to regional peers.

Key areas attracting funding include solar and wind energy projects addressing power generation deficits, electric vehicles such as scooters and delivery bikes enabling last-mile logistics and mobility solutions, automotive manufacturing building on South Africa’s existing industrial base, real estate responding to urban housing demands, banking serving unbanked populations through digital financial services, agriculture supporting food security and export crop production, and transport logistics facilitating regional trade integration.

Chinese-backed initiatives accounted for nearly 40 percent of all new renewable capacity installed in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2020 to 2024 according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, demonstrating the outsized role Chinese finance and technology play in advancing the continent’s clean energy transition amid limited availability of alternative financing sources at comparable scale and terms.

Challenges and Critical Perspectives

However, both Chinese and African policymakers are working to improve governance frameworks, enhance transparency, and ensure that investments meet high environmental and social standards as scrutiny of China-Africa economic relations has intensified. Multilateral institutions are increasingly involved, supporting best practices and increasing trust among global investors concerned about project standards and long-term sustainability.

For China’s role in Africa’s green energy future to remain positive, policymakers on both sides are emphasizing longer-term sustainability and alignment with global climate targets rather than short-term commercial gains. African governments are streamlining regulatory frameworks to attract capital and expedite permitting for solar, wind, and hydropower installations while China scales up investments in grid modernization and energy storage critical for integrating intermittent renewable sources.

Concerns persist about debt sustainability following instances where ambitious infrastructure programs financed through Chinese loans have contributed to fiscal stress in countries including Zambia, Kenya, and Angola. Critics argue that some projects prioritize political considerations over economic viability, lack adequate feasibility analysis, or impose onerous terms that limit fiscal flexibility for borrowing governments.

Environmental and social safeguards have also drawn scrutiny, with civil society organizations and affected communities raising concerns about inadequate environmental impact assessments, insufficient consultation with local stakeholders, displacement of communities without adequate compensation, and environmental degradation from extractive activities or construction operations that fail to meet international standards.

Labor practices at Chinese-operated sites have generated controversy in some contexts, with complaints about limited hiring of local workers for skilled positions, wage levels below local market rates, poor working conditions, and restrictions on union organizing. These concerns have sparked protests and political backlash in several countries, prompting both Chinese companies and African governments to pay greater attention to labor standards and local content requirements.

Future Outlook and Strategic Implications

As 2025 approaches, the synergy between China and Africa will likely deepen with greater focus on transparent partnerships, local stakeholder inclusion, and climate resilience as both sides seek to address criticisms while scaling up cooperation. For investors looking for strategic opportunities in renewable energy finance and sustainable development, closely monitoring Chinese-backed projects and regulatory reforms underway in key African markets will remain essential.

Africa’s electricity demand is projected to increase tenfold between 2015 and 2065 as the continent’s population grows and industrialization accelerates, presenting profound challenges for the energy transition including persistent energy access disparities, limited economic viability of power development in some contexts, inadequate power grid infrastructure, and substantial financing gaps that official development assistance alone cannot fill.

Estimates suggest that Africa will require $2.9 trillion in cumulative capital expenditure between 2022 and 2050, primarily for renewable energy infrastructure, to transform the continent’s energy landscape. However, current investment trends fall far short of this goal, with annual energy investments in 2022 totaling just $70 billion with only 42 percent directed toward renewables.

China’s comparative advantage in green technology manufacturing positions it to play a pivotal role in bridging this investment gap and accelerating Africa’s energy transition, particularly as Western development finance institutions face budget constraints and shifting political priorities that may limit their capacity to scale up climate finance. Treadway’s strategy of mobilizing private Chinese capital alongside state financing could help unlock additional resources beyond traditional bilateral and multilateral channels.

The firm’s focus on commercially viable projects rather than concessional lending may also contribute to more sustainable investment models that generate returns sufficient to service financing costs without requiring debt restructuring or external bailouts. By targeting projects with solid fundamentals and market-driven business cases, Treadway aims to demonstrate that African infrastructure investment can deliver competitive financial returns while advancing development objectives—a dual mandate that could attract broader investor participation beyond specialized development finance institutions.

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By: Montel Kamau

Serrari Financial Analyst

17th December, 2025