Nicaraguan assembly OKs $40 bln Chinese canal to rival Panama's

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Nicaraguan assembly OKs $40 bln Chinese canal to rival Panama's
MANAGUA, June 13 | Thu Jun 13, 2013 5:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - Nicaragua's national assembly on Thursday approved a 50-year concession to a Hong Kong-based Chinese company to design, build and manage at an estimated cost of $40 billion a shipping canal across the central American nation that would compete with the Panama Canal.

The proposal by HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co Ltd's (HKND Group) envisages linking Nicaragua's Caribbean and Pacific coasts and includes plans for two free trade zones, a railway, an oil pipeline and airports.

The government says the proposed canal, which has been mooted for years by Nicaraguan lawmakers, could add up to 15 percent to the country's gross domestic product.

"Today is a day of hope for the poor of this country," said Edwin Castro, a lawmaker in President Daniel Ortega's ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front party, before the vote that marked final legislative approval of the deal.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/nicaragua-canal-idUSL2N0EP1S020130613?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=401

[Judi Lynn]

1. Nicaragua waterway to dwarf Panama canal

Nicaragua waterway to dwarf Panama canal

Chinese firm to build and run $40bn trans-oceanic plan as opponents demand proper scrutiny of environmental impacts

Jonathan Watts, Latin America correspondent
The Guardian, Wednesday 12 June 2013 14.42 EDT

Nicaragua's parliament is due to vote on Thursday on one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Latin America's history – a trans-oceanic canal that is to be built and run by a Chinese company.

If it goes ahead, the $40bn (£26bn) scheme, which is twice as expensive as Brazil's Belo Monte dam and likely to be three times longer than the Panama canal, looks set to transform global shipping and jump start the economy of this Central American nation.

As well as the waterway, the draft agreement between Nicaragua and a Hong Kong registered firm — Nicaraguan Canal Development Investment Co Limited – includes provisions for two free trade zones, an airport and a "dry canal" freight railway.

"This will be the largest project in Latin America in 100 years," Ronald Maclean, the executive fronting the operation in Managua told the Guardian. "If Nicaragua gets to do this, it is going to be a transformational project not only for Nicaragua but for the region."

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/nicaragua-canal-waterway-panama

[dipsydoodle]

2. A day of hope for the poor of Nicaragua

[Baclava]

15. by destroying a major source of their drinking water?

"While the Hong Kong company has said almost nothing about the canal's route, it would certainly cross Lake Nicaragua, the country's primary source of fresh water. If one of the world's largest infrastructure projects ever is actually built, the water used by the canal's locks could seriously deplete the lake, environmentalists say."

"the project could have serious impacts on Lake Nicaragua, also known as Cocibolca, because of the amount of fresh water that would be used to operate the canal"

"We're at a crossroads because either you use Lake Cocibolca for floating boats or you use it for drinking water, but you can't use it for both things at once," said Victor Campos, assistant director of the Humboldt Center, an environmental organization."

[think]

3. Ortega's FU to the US for the illegal Contra war

Those darn wars....

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. A strange company to hand the vaguely-defined concession to

But Nicaragua is an unlikely beachhead for Beijing’s expanding geopolitical clout. The Central American nation is among a handful of countries that maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing still considers a renegade province. The Chinese company that was granted the generous concession, HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment (HKND-Group) — an enigmatic firm that was recently registered in the Cayman Islands and supposedly based in Hong Kong — doesn’t appear to have any direct ties to the Chinese government, nor any international experience managing infrastructure projects. Nor are there any immediate signs of Nicaragua following what Costa Rica did in 2007 and breaking ties with Taiwan in favor of new benefactors from the Chinese mainland.

The company’s CEO, Wang Jing, is a Chinese telecom tycoon. On the website of his flagship cellphone company Xinwei, Wang says his wireless company, which consequentially just received a full-service telecom concession to operate in Nicaragua, is dedicated to the “progress of the world civilization” and “will become a legend!” But other than his official bio, little is known about Wang. He has visited Nicaragua only once for a stiff, no-smiles photo op with President Ortega.

“Why Wang Jing? I really don’t know, but I would guess that no one else was willing to fund a project of this sort,” says Margaret Myers, director of the China and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue. Myers says Wang is rumored to have government connections, but so far there is no indication that the Chinese government is interested in the project. “I haven’t seen the project referenced at all in Chinese official or social media,” she says.
...
Money isn’t the only concern. Environmentalists — including Ortega’s top environmental adviser — warn that the project could have disastrous consequences for the country’s water supply, including the massive Lake Nicaragua, considered a key source of drinking water for Central America in decades to come. Meanwhile, José Adan Aguerri, president of Nicaragua’s largest business chamber, warns that private-property owners will be “defenseless” against expropriations by the canal project. Until the canal’s route is established, everyone owning property in the indeterminately large canal zone that’s been penciled across the middle of the country is at risk of being expropriated — a legal uncertainty that may bring an instant chill to Nicaragua’s investment climate.

http://world.time.com/2013/06/13/nicaraguas-chinese-canal-behind-the-audacious-40-billion-bid-to-build-a-rival-panama-canal/

[vinny9698]

5. China gave Nicaragua a better deal than the US to Columbia

Panama at one time was part of Columbia, it wanted to negotiate a better deal, Teddy Roosevelt said, let's back the Panama rebels and take their that. Panama had a perpetual lease, which became a 99 year lease.

[geek tragedy]

6. Nicaragua was a lot more expensive than Costa Rica.

China was able to buy Costa Rica's 'friendship' with a soccer stadium.

[AngryAmish]

7. A man, a plan, a canal, Nicaragua.

[dipsydoodle]

10. lol

A fucked up palindrome.

[Javaman]

8. Some history...

Nicaragua Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal

>snip<

The Nicaraguan Canal Commission carried out the most thorough hydrological survey yet of the San Juan river and its watershed, and in 1899 concluded that an interocean project was feasible at a total cost of US$138m. At the same time the Geological Society of America published the “Physiography and Geology of Region Adjacent to the Nicaragua Canal Route” in its Bulletin in May 1899 which stands to this day as one of the most detailed geological surveys of the San Juan river region.[6]

In the late 19th century, the United States government negotiated with President José Santos Zelaya to lease the land to build a canal through Nicaragua. Luis Felipe Corea, the Nicaraguan minister in Washington, wrote to US Secretary of State John Hay expressing the Zelaya government's support for such a canal. The US signed the Sánchez-Merry Treaty with Nicaragua in case the negotiations for a canal through Colombia fell through, although the treaty was later rejected by John Hay. Before Corea completed a draft of the Nicaragua proposal, Congress was considering the Spooner Act to authorize the Panama Canal. In addition to the promise of earlier completion of the Panama canal, opponents of the Nicaraguan canal cited the risk of volcanic activity at the Momotombo volcano. They favored construction of a canal through the isthmus of Panama.[7]

According to Stephen Kinzer's 2006 book Overthrow, in 1898 the chief of the French Canal Syndicate (a group that owned large swathes of land across Panama), Philippe Bunau Varilla, hired William Nelson Cromwell to lobby the U.S. Congress for the Panama Canal. In 1902, taking advantage of a year with increased volcanic activity in the Caribbean, Cromwell planted a story in the New York Sun reporting that the Momotombo volcano had erupted and caused a series of seismic shocks. This caused concern about its possible effects on a Nicaraguan canal. Cromwell arranged for leaflets with the stamps featuring Momotombo to be sent to every Senator, as "proof" of the volcanic activity in Nicaragua. An eruption in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, which killed 30,000 people, persuaded most of the U.S. Congress to vote in favour of Panama, leaving only eight votes in favour of Nicaragua. The decision to build the Panama Canal passed by four votes. William Nelson Cromwell was paid $800,000 for his lobbying efforts.[8]

At the start of the 20th century, Nicaraguan president José Santos Zelaya tried to arrange for Germany and Japan to finance the canal. Having settled on the Panama route, the US opposed this proposal.

More at link...

`````````````````````````````````````

an interesting thought is if Germany and Japan had taken up the offer back then.

[hunter]

9. Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy and expand the Panama Canal?

Less environmental impacts too...

[geek tragedy]

11. This is about spheres of influence.

Chinese money doesn't flow into Central America without expectations.

Taiwan and China have been playing this game for decades.

Costa Rica got a bridge out of the Taiwanese, with the concession being letting Taiwanese shark finners operate an illegal operation on Costa Rica's Pacific coast.

China was able to buy Costa Rica over to its side with a soccer stadium in San Jose.

Panama, for better or worse, is solidly in the US sphere of influence.

[AngryAmish]

12. I think they are expanding the Panama Canal

We won Puerto Rico in order to protect the canal. Since we don't own the canal anymore it is beyond time to give Puerto Rico their independence.

Viva la Puerto Rico!

[dsc]

13. except they don't want it

in vote after vote they have decided to stay a separate part of the US.

[Historic NY]

14. Its all the stuff that comes their way......

by being an unincorprated territory.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Becoming the 51st state is the most popular option there now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2012#Results

[dsc]

17. If that is what they want that is what they should get

It is as simple as that.