13.04.2016
China Railway links Ethiopia to Red Sea
Comment.
China (and many other countries), caused lots of large scale environmental and humanitarian problems, due to its forceful economic, technological and industrial development, in the recent past.
One could perhaps reasonably argue that such a way was the only possible modus to do "things", given the 'Powers That Be' oppressive, malevolent, vicious, pestilential, scourge-y, excruciating hand (and 'eye' for that matter...).
Nowadays, earthly conditions have largely shifted towards more healthy, more humanely balanced levels, though not so testified -as yet- by one and all.
Therefore, any form of growth and development irrespective of the new conditions of pure-free energy, already available to those who care for it and/or not respectful to the eternal Human Values, now surfacing back for good and for ever, will not help History to keep a dutiful reverential place in Gaia's future, for this great , historic nation. m.l.p.
"...In May, 2014 Chinese Prime Minister Li
Keqiang and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, met in Addis
Ababa. After their meeting Hailemarian told the press, China is
“supporting Ethiopia’s great vision to become Africa’s manufacturing
powerhouse.” Hailemariam told reporters at a joint press conference in
Addis Ababa. vii..."
"...In May, 2014 Chinese Prime Minister Li
Keqiang and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, met in Addis
Ababa. After their meeting Hailemarian told the press, China is
“supporting Ethiopia’s great vision to become Africa’s manufacturing
powerhouse.” Hailemariam told reporters at a joint press conference in
Addis Ababa. vii..."
China Railway links Ethiopia to Red Sea
Nothing
could be more symbolic of the decline of Europe and the rise of Eurasia
than the construction of a modern railway from the Ethiopian capitol of
Addis Ababa to a port on the Red Sea in Djibouti. The Rail line is
being built by Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and
China Railway Group (CREC). It replaces an old delapidated rail line
built by the French during the period of European colonization of Africa
at the end of the 19th Century.
What, where, when…
The Chinese rail company is going to
make the entirely new 656-kilometer electric rail line from the
Ethiopian capitol of Addis Ababa to the Red Sea Port of Djibouti fully
operational at most any moment now. The project will create 5,000 local
jobs, and allow Ethiopia to boost exports of key commodities such as
coffee and sesame. It also offers the opportunity to get Ethiopian
workers trained by engineers from the Chinese Civil Engineering
Construction Corporation. To date 250 Ethiopian students have been
trained in China in the railway sector, a good address as China today is
the world’s leading builder of railways.
It will cost $1.2 billion with the
Export-Import Bank of China financing 70 per cent and the Ethiopian
government 30 per cent. It will be one of the first electric trains in
East Africa, with a speed of 120 kilometres an hour. It will reportedly
be easier and cheaper to maintain than the former French diesel
locomotives, the last of which shut down in 2008, as it will be
mechanised, relying on locally-produced hydropower to run.
The Addis-Ababa-Red Sea line is one of a
network of planned rail infrastructure that will link land-locked
Ethiopia in a series of eight rail corridors totalling 4,744 kilometres,
creating a series of key trade routes to neighbouring Kenya, South
Sudan, Sudan and — crucially — to Djibouti’s port. Another planned line
will connect the region of Afar, where Ethiopia is encouraging the
mining of potash for fertiliser. Lack of efficient road and rail
infrastructure
has cost the economy dearly. Difficulties such as poor
roads and old truck fleets mean transporting goods from the Addis Ababa
to Djibouti can take days. The new railway line will cut the time to
about eight hours, a huge economic boost and an example of the economic
transformative power of well-conceived infrastructure.The new Chinese-built Addis Ababa to Red Sea railway will open Ethiopia directly to trade with China and Asia
The grand infrastructure project is named
GTP, the Ethiopian Government’s five year Growth and Transformation
Plan to lift the country out of poverty and transform its agriculture
and industrial potentials to the level of a middle income country in the
next ten years. Other parts of the GTP call for new roads and dams to
produce hydro-electric power to produce planned GDP growth rates of at
least 8% yearly. In addition to the Chinese, Turkish and Brazilian
construction companies have bid on other parts of the GTP.
Why…
The Chinese have clearly done their
homework in making the decision to build critical economic
infrastructure in Ethiopia. It is Africa’s second largest in population
after Nigeria with some 96 million population. Something little
discussed, it lies along the African Great Rift Belt, a tectonic fault
line or belt some 6,000 kilometers long from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to
Mozambique in South Eastern Africa. Some geophysicists believe the
Ethiopian or East African Rift Belt contains some of the world’s richest
untapped mineral deposits and potentially Saudi-levels of
hydrocarbons–oil and gas. Until now colonial occupation by Mussolini and
lack of development during the Cold War have kept that richness from
being of benefit to the country. That is now changing.
For the Chinese, the reasons are many to
make the rail link between the Red Sea Port in Djibouti and the
interior of Africa’s second largest market. One reason is to begin
bringing Chiense factories into Ethiopia to produce at lower costs than
the same factories are able to in China where in the past decade wage
levels have steadily risen. The combination of cheaper labor costs, some
costs as low as 10% of those in today’s China, adequate hydro-power
electricity and now accessibility to the sea are making the country a
magnet for foreign direct investment of a size for the first time. As an
example of the recent rise in manufacturing wages in China, average
factory pay in Henan, about 800 kilometers from the China coast, rose
103 percent in the five years ended in September 2014. They rose 80
percent in Chongqing, 1,700 kilometers up the Yangtze River, and 82
percent in Guangdong. A typical Ethiopian unskilled factory worker makes
about $30 a month. South Africa, Africa’s largest manufacturing country
has a monthly average wage of $1,200 and China today about $560 a month.
Foreign direct investment in the nation
surged almost 250 percent to $953 million in 2013 from the year before,
according to estimates by the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development. The Government expects 2015 to be a record for foreign
direct investment, up 25 per cent from 2014’s $1.2 billion, for a record
$1.5 billion. When the new rail link to the Red Sea opens in early 2016
that FDI level should greatly rise as especially Chinese, Indian and
Turkish companies flock to locate there.
In May, 2014 Chinese Prime Minister Li
Keqiang and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, met in Addis
Ababa. After their meeting Hailemarian told the press, China is
“supporting Ethiopia’s great vision to become Africa’s manufacturing
powerhouse.” Hailemariam told reporters at a joint press conference in
Addis Ababa. vii
What is emerging around the Chinese
construction of a semingly minor rali link in a land-locked East African
country could be the building block for a major economic development of
Africa for the first time in modern history, something European
colonial powers from France to Belgium to Portugal to Britain did all in
their power to avoid.
F. William Engdahl is
strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics
from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and
geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/13/china-railway-links-ethiopia-to-red-sea/
http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/13/china-railway-links-ethiopia-to-red-sea/