This project is actually going ahead and it is going ahead fast.
They may talk about private money but that is BS. It allows China to
end monopoly pricing in Panama and to capture a sweetheart rate for
their shipping. I also bet that this canal will be much larger than
the Panama Canal. For those reasons alone, we can count on huge
Chinese money been involved.
There are other answers to global shipping but they also take
initiative and huge money. In the meantime, this is a direct
alteration of the status quo that impacts everyone.
I think it may be time to dust of some ideas on airships that can
carry eight deep sea containers at a time. They at least can travel
in a straight line fro source to customer at around one hundred miles
per hour.
My point is that we just entered the age of mega investment in
transportation on a global basis.
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
12 June 2013
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 aHong
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."
Given the government's
large majority, parliamentary approval is expected to be a formality,
but critics warn the plan is being rushed through without adequate
scrutiny of the environmental impact, business viability and public
well-being.
A one-year viability
study is now under way and the operators soon plan to tap
international financial markets in New York, London and Tokyo for
investment in a scheme that they say will be entirely privately
funded. President Daniel Ortega is also said to be promoting the
scheme in meetings with ambassadors from Brazil, Saudi Arabia and
Canada.
Although
hydro-engineering techniques have advanced considerably since the
48-mile (77 km) Panama canal was completed in 1914, the logistical
challenge will be enormous. The new canal, which will pass through a
much wider stretch of land, is likely to be more than 250km long. It
will also be much wider to allow passage by the biggest container
ships. The project will be operated by HKDN — a Hong-Kong based
firm set up last year that has established a holding company in the
Caiman Islands. It will pay $10m a year for 10 years to the
Nicaraguan government.
Bigger benefits are
expected in the wider economy. Paul Oquist, secretary of public
policies of the presidency of the republic, said the Great
Interoceanic canal will allow Nicaragua's GDP to double and
employment to triple by 2018.
Legislators have
complained that congressional committees had only two days to review
a bill that could shape the country for a century.
"Given its
complexity, the length of the concession and its importance for all
Nicaraguans, this project deserves to be fully discussed and
explained, seeking the broadest national consensus," noted the
Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development, an
independent think-tank. "How can we as Nicaraguans be sure that
the conditions stipulated in the bill are the best that could have
been achieved?"
Details of the
possible route have yet to be disclosed, though it is thought likely
that it will run through Lake Nicaragua, the most important source of
freshwater in the country and a home to sharks and numerous other
species.
Jaime Incer, a
renowned environmentalist and presidential adviser, urged caution.
"There are alternatives for linking one ocean to the other, but
there are no alternatives for cleaning a lake after a disaster has
happened. We don't have another Lake Nicaragua," he told the
Confidencial newspaper.
Indigenous groups also
say they have not been adequately consulted.
The operator says it
has hired one of the world's leading consultancies, Environmental
Resources Management to conduct impact assessments: "HKND Group
has committed to develop the project in a manner that conforms with
international best practices, delivers significant benefits to
Nicaragua and its people, generates local job growth and economic
development, honours the local population and heritage of the
country, and serves the best interests of Central America and,
indeed, the world."
But little is known of
the group behind the project, which is headed by Wang Jing, the head
of one of China's biggest telecom firms Xinwei. It is unclear
whether he has any experience in the field of hydroengineering,
shipping or infrastructure, but earlier this year his company signed
an agreement with the state-owned China Railway Construction Company,
and Jing has met senior leaders in Beijing, including president Xi
Jinping.
Margaret Myers,
director of the China and Latin America programme at the
Inter-American Dialogue, said Wang's involvement did not necessarily
mean the involvement of the Chinese government.
"The extent to
which this project will increase 'China's' influence in the region
and on global trade routes is unclear. This would depend on a wide
variety of factors, including HKC's connections to the Chinese
government and who else, if anyone, decides to invest in the
project,"she wrote.
The Nicaraguan
government was due to be a 51% shareholder in the projects, according
to preliminary legislation passed last year. There is no mention of
this in the latest bill, but Maclean said there has not been a
change.
"I think it
involves a gradual transfer from the company to the government over
the life of the concession and that eventually the government will
own the canal," he said.
Opposition lawmakers
said immunity, tax breaks and other preferential treatment for
foreign investors in a still-to-be determined project was a violation
of nation sovereignty.
The Sandinista
Renovation Movement said it would oppose the bill and "any
document that gifts a concession, privileges, exonerations and tax
exemptions to an unknown company, for an unknown route, for a period
of 100 years."
"We are going to
hand over the country's sovereignty without knowing where the canal
is going to go, how much it is going to cost, its ecological impact
or how long its construction is going to last," Independent
Liberal party legislator Eliseo Núñez, told La Prensa.
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