When and How African Real Exchange Rates Relative to China Affect its Manufacturing?

China’s exports of manufactured goods to African countries, stimulated by a real appreciation of several African currencies vis-à-vis the renminbi, have grown especially rapidly. This did not however prevent African countries from a higher growth rate of manufacturing value added than the precedent period during which China’s exports to African countries were very low. We estimated a manufacturing function by using a panel data of 44 African countries over the period from 2000 to 2015, GMM estimator and an original set of real exchanges rates. We find positive and specific impact of the real exchange rate- appreciation of African countries relative to China on African manufacturing and attribute this positive effect to the improvement of productivity efficiency. However, this favourable effect disappears with too strong appreciations. These results have clear political implication, as it does not speak in favor of systematic depreciations of African currencies.