Paper short abstract:

The paper presents the findings from a study of 86 Chinese migrants and their influence on existing employment and business opportunities in Lesotho's micro- and small scale business sector.

Paper long abstract:

Despite the fact that Chinese migration to Lesotho is not a new phenomenon, we still know little about these migrants and their economic activities in general, and their influence on the reproduction or altering of Lesotho's employment and business opportunities in particular. Identifying this knowledge gap, I conducted a survey among 86 Chinese migrants in seven towns in Lesotho in November 2011 and February 2012. My analysis shows that Chinese migrants in Lesotho, by establishing small shops and supermarkets, appear to give in to structural constraints (low demand and high entrance barriers into the large-scale wholesale and retail sector) and are thereby reproducing existing business opportunities. However, by being rather successful and employing Basotho, they are at least partially altering existing employment opportunities. At the same time, they are also outcompeting Basotho businesses by engaging in different business practices (different setups of the businesses and sourcing strategies). This has several implications: on the negative side it leads to an exposure of Basotho to the competition from Chinese migrants; on the positive side, Basotho are adapting several aspects of Chinese business practices, thus at least partially increasing the Basotho's overall economic competitiveness.