China Agricultural Outlook News | 5 October 2021
(Unofficial translation by the editors of farmlandgrab.org)
Chaoliang Group's Tanzania PTA construction project signed with Hunan Construction Engineering Group for USD 300 million
Pan Tanzania Agriculture Developments Ltd, a Chinese enterprise in Africa, under Chaoliang Group, has recently successfully signed the "EPC Construction of Agricultural Products Industrial Park, Port and New Town in Kilwa, Tanzania" project with Hunan Construction Engineering Group and Djibouti Silk Road International Bank, the contracted amount of the first phase of the project is 300 million US dollars.
The successful signing of the project marks the official launch of China's largest project in Tanzania "integrating agricultural product industrial parks, ports and new cities" and the beginning of the construction output stage. It is an important cooperation achievement of the second China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. It means that the project will help the export of Tanzania's agricultural products, greatly improve the export infrastructure, and make the export of agricultural products more convenient. It will definitely promote the development of Tanzania's agriculture and bring endogenous impetus to Tanzania's economic development.
Project signing ceremony
As early as at the first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in 2019, Chaoliang Group signed an investment cooperation framework agreement for agricultural export processing zones with Tanzania's agricultural export processing zones. According to the agreement, Chaoliang Group will build an 80,000-acre cooperative development park in southern Tanzania, including a 10,000-acre export processing zone and a 70,000-acre agricultural plantation park. After the completion of the project, through the "acquisition + planting" mode of agricultural products, it is expected to increase the export of about 2 million tons of agricultural products every year.
The "EPC Construction of Agricultural Products Industrial Park, Port and New City in Kilwa, Tanzania" project is the continuation and expansion of the signing results of the first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. The project is a key investment project by Beijing Chaoliang Holdings, the parent company of Beijing Chaoliang Technology. The project is located in the KILWA region of Tanzania, with 80,000 acres of land (equivalent to 324 square kilometers), and has obtained the land use certificate of the Tanzania government.
The signing ceremony of the China-Africa infrastructure cooperation project covers the signing of 17 contracts in the field of China's project contracting and project investment in Africa, including business contracts, framework agreements, and strategic cooperation agreements, involving Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania and other African countries in infrastructure cooperation in professional fields such as transportation, energy, communications, water conservancy, industry and agriculture. The contract signing of this signing ceremony will be in the form of video and on-site signing. The signed projects will promote the implementation of the "Eight Major Actions" of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Africa.
Forum site
One of the important activities of the second China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo is the China-Africa Infrastructure Cooperation Forum, which was successfully held at the Changsha International Convention Center in an online and offline manner. The deepening of China-Africa cooperation is facing new major opportunities, which will open a new chapter in the post-pandemic era of China-Africa building a closer community of shared future. Tanzania is one of the least developed countries in the world. Its economy is dominated by agriculture and its industrial production technology is low. How to improve the backward situation in Tanzania? How to inject vitality into Tanzania's economic development? These became the main body of the discussion session of this forum.
In the seminar on Tanzania, Mr. Ma Shengcong, Chairman of Beijing Chaoliang Holdings Co., Ltd., Mr. Cai Dianwei, Chairman of Hunan Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd., Mr. Zhuang Liang, Chairman of Pan Tanzania Agriculture Developments Co Ltd, Director of Djibouti Silk Road International Bank and Mr. Ibrahim, Executive Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic, conducted an in-depth discussion focusing on the "EPC Construction Project of Agricultural Products Industrial Park, Port and New Town in Kilwa, Tanzania".
Mr. Ma Shengcong, chairman of Beijing Chaoliang Holdings Co., Ltd., first introduced in detail that Chaoliang Holdings is based on Chaoliang Technology as the core, focusing on investment, operation, management, and empowerment of the entire industry chain of China-Africa miscellaneous grains and agricultural trade. With capital as the link, Chaoliang Holdings focuses on corporate strategy, brand, organizational management, corporate governance, investment management and government relationship management, and is committed to creating a closed-loop economic and trade industrial chain between China and Africa and a model of China-Africa dual-circulation economic entity, serving as a model for China-Africa Complementary economic advantages and common development make positive contributions. As the largest trading platform for small agricultural products in China and Africa, Chaoliang Technology Co., Ltd. has been in Africa for 16 consecutive years in 14 countries including Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Senegal, Central Africa, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it has established complete supply chain systems such as planting, purchasing, processing, quality standardization, warehousing and transportation, and established centralized trading, bonded re-export, deep processing, distribution, supply chain finance, and China-Africa RMB cross-border payment, market maker and other systems in Qingdao and Guangzhou, China. In 2020, Chaoliang helped 50 million African farmers solve their basic food and clothing problems through a complete China-Africa supply chain.
Mr. Ma Shengcong also said that the main export port of agricultural products in Tanzania is the northern port of Dar es Salaam, which is far away from the southern agricultural production areas and has high logistics costs. Considering the supporting industry, Chaoliang is taking over the 35-year BOT of MASOKO's port, transforming it into a multi-functional terminal, building 1-2 berths, and a handling capacity of 2 million tons; and supporting a 3,500-acre new city, logistics, airport business, etc, to solve the problem of high transportation cost of agricultural products export. The scale of the project is huge, and it will be jointly developed and constructed with China Merchants Port, Hunan Construction Engineering Group and other Chinese port operators and state-owned construction enterprises.
It is believed that the combination of strong enterprises and the complementary advantages of each participating enterprise will give full play to their respective advantages, so as to form a long-term and stable cooperation, and ultimately achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. It will definitely inject new impetus into Tanzania's economy and contribute to the two-way development of China and Tanzania.
