Government Goes to China in Search of New Loans

Prime Minister Hun Sen will travel to China on Saturday to meet with the rising superpower’s new leadership, in a trip the government expects to yield nearly $2 billion in loans and aid. Most significantly, the Government is hoping to secure Chinese funding for a 1.67 billion oil refinery project in Kampot province, which would ensure China’s prime position in Cambodia’s yet-to-take-off oil industry. ... The statement [from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation] lists eight deals including a memorandum of understanding between the National Bank of Cambodia and China Banking Regulatory Commission, an “agreement on economic and technical cooperation” worth 48.38 million, more than $73 million in concessional loans for an irrigation project in Kompong Thom province and a bridge in Kandal province. According to the statement, the government also expects to sign a memorandum of understanding on a 5-million-ton-a-year oil refinery project, involving China Development Bank and China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, both Chinese state-owned companies, to the tune of $1.67 billion. China’s development bank is known as one of China’s “policy banks”- meaning that it gives loans in support of Chinese foreign policy. Such banks have funded Chinese-built hydropower dams in Cambodia. In December, China Perfect Machinery Industry Corp.- which is majority owned by state-owned industrial giant SINOMACH- and Cambodian Petrochemical Company- which is chaired by cigarette magnate Kong Triv- agreed that work would begin on the oil refinery this year. ... Two Chinese companies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and China Petrotech Holdings ltd., have been grated exploration blocks off Cambodia’s coat to search for oil and gas. ...

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