Jia Yu: personal journey of a Chinese investor and advisor in Africa

Voices of the Belt and Road Podcast: Understand the Impact of China on the World

Dr. Jia Yu is Senior Operations Officer and the Director of International Development Cooperation at the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University. Previously, Dr. Yu worked more than 8 years for State Power Investment Corp. (SPIC) International Minerals & Investment Co., Ltd as the director of the Dept. of Business Development & Public Relations. She was responsible for overseas energy and mining investment and public relations at the corporate level; global resources market research, China’s outward FDI policy and empirical studies at a macro level. Before joining SPIC, Dr. Yu started her career as a consultant for the utility industry with Accenture.

Dr. YU graduated from Peking University with a double major in French and Economics and received a scholarship from the French government to continue her studies in France. Dr. Yu has two Masters’ degrees, in Economics and one in Development Economics and Project Management, at CERDI-CNRS in France.

Her current focus is on Chinese “Go Global” empirical studies, Industrial Park and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) development, as well as China's overseas investment and the interaction of the manufacturing, energy and mining sector and their roles in the process of industrialization for countries along the Belts and Road.

On this podcast, Jia Yu discusses what she learned as part of a team doing large-scale investing in Africa from both a business and personal perspective. The colorful examples she discusses on the podcast highlight the importance of cultural understanding and the need for building the “soft” human infrastructure as well as the “hard” infrastructure components such as mining facilities, power generation plants and industrial parks.