Category: Infrastructure
U.S. Is Apparently Determined to See if It Can Build a “Belt & Road Alternative.” Biden to Discuss With Suga Next Week in DC.
U.S. President Joe Biden appears increasingly determined for the U.S. to rally allies in Europe and Asia to develop a rival to China's Belt and Road Initiative. The issue will reportedly be on the agenda next week when Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is scheduled to meet with ...
Nigerian Minister Blames “Selfish Lawmakers” for Jeopardizing Chinese Railway Loans
Nigeria's outspoken Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi accused lawmakers in the House of Representatives of being "selfish" for launching a probe into a 2018 Chinese loan agreement. Representatives erroneously thought that the waiver of a sovereign immunity clause in the loan contract ...
President John Magufuli’s Unexpected Death Comes at a Critical Time in Sino-Tanzania Relations
Chinese diplomatic missions in Africa responded with condolences early Thursday morning to the news that Tanzanian President John Magufuli passed away from heart complications on Wednesday. President Magufuli had been out of sight ...
Data Reveals Africa’s Inefficient Distribution of Road Building Projects Financed by China and the World Bank
The Brookings Institution today showcased some of the findings from an earlier working paper by Harvard doctoral student Tilman Graff who studied the spatial inefficiencies of Africa’s transportation industry and its impact on trade. According to Graff, road building projects financed ...
Ugandans Unhappy That Chinese-Built Road is Falling Apart Soon After It Was Built, But the Contractor May Not Be To Blame
Residents in northern Uganda are expressing disappointment that a $25 million, 106-kilometer Chinese-built road is pockmarked with dangerous potholes just six years after it opened. The Gulu-Atiak-Nimule highway is a key transport link to the border with South Sudan and is ...
Kenya’s Treasury Chief Refutes Media Reports that the Port of Mombasa is at Risk of Forfeiture to China
Kenya's Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani denied, again, on Monday that the Port of Mombasa could be handed over to China in the event that Kenya Railways is unable to repay its SGR debt. Yattani responded to a front-page story in The Star ...
The Star Editorial Board: SGR Needs to Go Regional to Repay Its Chinese Creditors
Kenya needs to invest even more money into the embattled SGR if the railway has any chance of becoming financially self-sufficient to the point where it can repay its Chinese creditors, according to an editorial in today's The Star newspaper. For ...
MP: Rampant Corruption, Poor Planning and “Pooh Pooh” Leadership to Blame for SGR’s Woes (Not China)
Kenyan Member of Parliament for Kitutu Chache, Richard Onyonka, gave a very entertaining assessment of why the Standard Gauge Railway is facing so many difficulties which all, more or else in his view, relate to poor leadership and governance.
With Chinese Engineers Back on Site, Zimbabwe’s New International Airport is Almost Half Done
Construction of the new international terminal at Harare's main airport is now 46% complete according to Zimbabwean officials who credit the return of Chinese engineers for the recent progress. Chinese staff on the project had been unable to get back into ...
China’s Massive New Data Trunk Line Linking Asia, Africa, and Europe is Nearing Completion
A consortium of Chinese companies is nearing completion of the 12,000-kilometer PEACE cable (Pakistan East Africa Connecting to Europe) that will deliver badly-needed bandwidth to large swathes of Africa. The capacity of the undersea cable is so large, in fact, that it can transport 90,000 hours of ...
Kenya to Take Control of Some SGR Responsibilities Ahead of Schedule in an Effort to Reduce Debt Burden
Kenya Railways (KR) and Afristar, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation, have agreed to transfer some of the responsibilities of operating the embattled Standard Gauge Railway years ahead of schedule as part of an effort to reduce the financial burden on ...
How Much Does Kenya Owe China to Build and Operate the Various SGR Lines?
It's not clear at this time if the decision to expedite the handover of some SGR responsibilities from Afristar to Kenya Railways is part of the ongoing debt restructuring talks that are purportedly underway between China and Kenya. Until now, there's ...