Predatory Investment in Africa by Hong Kong-based Company

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, published in May 2015 a major report titled "The Anatomy of the Resource Curse: Predatory Investment in Africa's Extractive Industries" by J.R. Mailey, a research associate at the Center. 

The report tracks the practices of the Hong Kong-based consortium known as the 88 Queensway Group.  Cultivating relationships with high-level government officials in politically isolated resource-rich states through infusions of cash, promises of billions of dollars in infrastructure development, and support of the security sector, Queensway has been able to gain access to major oil and mining concessions across Africa.

Queensway's collaborations with the governments of Africa's resource-rich states have often failed to improve citizens' living standards.  Promised high-profile infrastructure construction projects regularly fail to materialize.  Allegations of corruption among senior government officials who control natural resource contracts are widespread.  Unaccountable governments remain propped up by the infusion of financial and material support to the regimes in power.  Yet Queensway continues to thrive and remain active across Africa.  The Group is able to access multibillion dollar loans from mainstream financial institutions, control a company listed  on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and own high-end real estate around the world. 

African governments lack the necessary political will to hold their citizens and companies accountable for such activities even where appropriate laws exist.  The cases profiled in the study are located in Angola, Tanzania, Guinea, and Zimbabwe.