Month: April 2007

The awareness of stock markets has grown  in last couple of years and amount of people participating in stock trading has grown. Chinese companies are also using the stock market to raise money to fund projects outside China. Chinese construction companies are very active in Africa. So when Hangxiao Steel company announced that have won a construction project in Angola worth 30 billion RMB, the shares went up six times the initial value.

Amidst allegations of wrongdoing, The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) decided to investigate the company. 

http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20070405/102823.shtml

There were also reports that a senior company executive may have leaked information about the contract to workers at an entertainment venue before the official announcement and the  boss of the venue traded in Hongxiao’s stocks.

The Chinese state owned television network launched its own investigation in to the case. They figured out the GDP of Angola and its foreign exchange reserve.
The contract is worth 4.3 billion USD, while Angola’s GDP in 2005 was about 30 billion USD.  So the contract is worth approximately 14% of Angola’s GDP.  Angola’s foreign exchange reserves is about 6.5 billion USD.  The contract worth about 2/3 of its foreign exchange reserves.

CCTV tried asking the official bodies responsible for development projects in Angola if they had any information on this project. The 16 agencies they contacted refused to confirm this project.  The company downplayed CCTV’s report saying that the Angolan authorities had not outright denied the existence of the project.  They are still insisting that they have the contract. 

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200704/20070424/article_313861.htm

The latest  news is that the Chinese Stock regulators have stated that they plan to punish Hangxiao stell for inaccurate and incomplete information disclosure. Several people involved with the case have been asked to stay put in China.

http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20070429/102189.shtml

We are not sure how this issue will play out but it wont be the last case where a company uses an African project to raise its profile. Would this issue affect legitimate companies trying to fund their overseas projects? Would the media take the role of doing homework for the investors in such cases in the future?

– by Preetam Rai

Technorati tags: Hibiscus Project, Angola, China

Liu Tao is a Ph. D candidate of the Institute for World Society Studies of Bielefeld University.  He has been writing a series of posts on the rise of China, making his advices on China’s economic, political, and foreign policies.  His series consistently attract lots of attention from Chinese readers.  A reader, in responding to one of his post, even offers to publish his series. 

Recently, Liu Tao wrote a post, Tortuous path of Africa’s modernization – a revelation to the rise of China.

In this post, Liu Tao selects African continent as a reference, talking about what China can learn from other Third World countries’ modernization process.

Liu Tao comes up with his own theory of modernization. He believes that any country in the world has to go through three stages on the road to modernization.

In general, the three stages are,

1. The establishment of a modern nation-state. Form an effective modern nation-state through wars, revolutions and mobilization of the entire country.

2. Economic development and industrialization. Adopt a market economy, use the state’s power to develop national industry and achieve a rapid modernization.

3. The establishment of a society with functional divisions. Legal definition of the state, the market and the basic functions of all social elements’ relations.

A country is required to complete the missions of one stage before it going to the next. All countries have to go through these three basic stages before reaching modernization.

The process of the first stage, the establishment of a modern nation-state, is usually sanguinary, involving wars or revolutions, killings or genocides, just like what happened when Napoleon created new Europe and Bismarck unified German. We should not use today’s standard of human rights to measure this progress. Continue reading “What should China learn from Africa?”

原文链接：http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4068

翻译：Peipei Yue，Jacky Peng等

审稿：Oiwan

（本文原作者Akwe Amosu女士是非洲问题专家。她现在是开放社会研究所华盛顿分所的非洲高级政策分析员。她在尼日利亚长大，并在尼日利亚和英国受教育。她曾在Trust Africa Foundation，AllAfrica Foundation，UN’s Economic Commission，BBC，Financial Times in London and West Africa等机构工作过或是担任高级职位。）

这里是离海岸500英里的热带森林深处。除了中国人，没有其它投资人敢踏足加蓬(Gabon)的这个地方。一个由中国机械设备进出口公司领队的投标团赢得了开发这个加蓬Belinga 大铁矿的合约。为了可以购买所有开采出的铁矿石，中国的工程队除了要在Belinga建采矿设施外，还要建一个给采矿供电的水力发电站，一条通向海边的铁路，和在加蓬首都利伯维尔(Libreville)北边建一个深水港口以出口矿石。

中国不但要投资几十亿美元而且要等至少三年才能真正开采出铁矿。自1955年这个铁矿被发现以来，没有任何一个西方公司来开发这个铁矿。然而，在国家的支持下，中国公司现在迈出了这个充满风险的一步。

中国在非洲的推进让各专家们想起了那些耳熟能详的关于两象相争的故事。他们想当然地认为，在这场东西方的较量中――两象相争――受害的将是非洲大地上的青草。

不过，时代已经不同了。在非洲受到的第一场殖民掠夺中，在谈判桌上只有那些帝国主义者，他们之间商量着就把非洲大陆给瓜分了。现在，非洲已经远不是一个被动的受害人。非洲站到谈判桌前，热切地想达成协议。在这一次开发Belinga铁矿的交易中，中国是与加蓬的现政府进行谈判，而不是加蓬的宗主国–法国。是东方还是西方胜出，这已无需争辩了。

尽管如此，地上的青草还是有可能受到伤害。非洲的人民须要提防外国势力同时也要注意不为他们本国政府所害。非洲政府能有多少代表人民的利益？非洲的谈判水平是否及格？这非常令人怀疑。这些问题的答案最终还是要看非洲能否把中国钞票转化为自身的发展。

中国人所寻求的利益 Continue reading “中国在非洲：还是治理问题，笨蛋”