肯尼亞請求债务重组。
2020-10-04 15:07阅读：
2017年建成的580公里长的Mombasa-Naivasha铁路亏钱。本來的构想就是大错。
南华早报如是说。
Kenya keen to renegotiate debt, fees with China as coronavirus hits
unprofitable Mombasa-Naivasha rail line.
State-owned engineering giant China Communications Construction
Company and its subsidiary built the Mombasa-Naivasha Standard
Gauge Railway line.
The 580km (360 mile) line, which was completed in 2017, cost US$4.7
billion as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
By Su-Lin Tan and Jevans Nyabiage.
肯尼亞請求债务重组。除了铁路，还有很多其他项目。除了中交建，中国进出口银行的贷款也要重组。埃塞、刚果、安哥拉的重组已经谈好了。最让人伤心的是这一句话。大家自己读。
Almost every belt and road loan now requires some form of
renegotiation, although asset seizures or debt forgiveness are
rare, Jones said.
香港南华早报报道。续前。
“The inherent problems of the project, coupled with short-term
pressures arising from Covid-19, are much more likely to explain
Kenya’s attempts to renegotiate than any US pressure. It’s just too
simplistic to attribute everything to cunning geopolitical
statecraf
t,” said Lee Jones, a political economy and international relations
expert at Queen Mary University of London.
The project was completed in 2017 but last week, the Kenyan
transport committee recommended the government renegotiate the
terms of the loans from China Exim Bank.
The committee said the government should also ask the railway’s
management company, Africa Star Railway, a subsidiary of another of
the rail line’s builders, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC),
to take a 50 per cent cut on its US$10 million monthly management
fee.
Africa Star Railway runs the passenger and cargo train line, while
Kenya Railways supervises the project on behalf of the Kenyan
government.
Relaxing the loan terms would give the Kenyan government breathing
space as it grapples with falling tax revenues as a result of the
economic downturn caused by the coronavirus outbreak, the committee
said.
CRBC, itself a subsidiary of CCCC, was awarded the US$3.2 billion
contract in 2014 to build the Mombasa-Nairobi phase of the rail
line. CCCC later stepped in to build an extension from Nairobi to
Naivasha for another US$1.5 billion, although a further extension
of the line to Malaba, on the border with Uganda, hangs in the
balance due to a lack of commercial viability.
Kenya has two interest bearing loans from China Exim Bank with
20-year repayment terms, a US$1.6 billion loan at a commercial
interest rate and an extended US$1.6 billion loan at a discounted
interest rate.
Despite successfully paying the first interest payment of US$350
million in January, the next payment could be in limbo as the rail
line is unprofitable. Last year, it generated US$130 million in
revenue but incurred running costs of more than US$170 million,
resulting in a US$40 million shortfall, government data
showed.
It is also behind on its management fee payments to Africa Star
Railway, with an outstanding debt of US$380 million.
The Kenyan government has tried to force importers to use the rail
line, but while it cuts the journey time between Nairobi to Mombasa
by more than half, the freight costs are higher.
“Kenya will be spending almost 12 per cent of its foreign debt
obligation on the [Standard Gauge Railway] rail line alone. Against
the backdrop of dwindling tax revenue collection due to the
Covid-19 pandemic economic disruption, it’s prudent for Kenya to
engage China for renegotiations … since the project isn‘t financing
itself,” said Kenyan-based economist Tony Watima.
This adds to the railway line’s prior woes, including a court
ruling in June that the rail contract between Kenya and CRBC was
illegal because Kenya Railways, which acted for the government,
violated the nation’s laws “in the procurement of the [Standard
Gauge Railway] project”. Kenya Railways is appealing the
verdict.
Fortunately, despite coming under scrutiny after the United States
Department of Commerce blacklisted the last month five of its
dredging subsidiaries, CCCC’s association with the rail line has
not had any negative impact on train operations or its relationship
with Kenya, trade lawyers said.
The US Department of Commerce has placed around 300 other Chinese
entities on its Entity List, including telecommunications company
Huawei, forbidding American firms from doing any business with them
or exporting products to them unless they receive a special
licence. CCCC’s subsidiaries were blocked due to their roles in
helping China “militarise” island outposts in the contested South
China Sea.
Trade lawyers who previously confirmed the sanctions were unlikely
to cause widespread reputational damage to all CCCC businesses,
said the same for CCCC’s African deals.
“My sense is that [the Kenyan call for loan renegotiations]
probably does not have anything to do with the Entity List issue
since that wouldn’t affect the payment of management fees. It’s
plausible that the pandemic is driving the request if it is putting
a strain on Kenya’s state finances,” said Steptoe & Johnson
lawyer Nicholas Turner, who specialises in economic sanctions and
export controls.
CCCC have shrugged off the impact of the blacklisting on its
business and pushed on with its overseas projects, including its
belt and road activities.
But bigger problems of poor local management and project due
diligence loom, according to a Chatham House report by Queen Mary
University of London’s Jones and The University of Queensland’s
political science expert Shahar Hameiri.
“Political-economy dynamics and governance problems on both sides
have led to poorly conceived and managed projects,” the report
said.
“The Belt and Road Initiative is frequently portrayed as a
geopolitical strategy that ensnares countries in unsustainable debt
… however, the available evidence challenges this position.
“In Sri Lanka and Malaysia, the two most widely cited ‘victims’ of
China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, the most controversial [Belt and
Road Initiative] projects were initiated by the recipient
governments, which pursued their own domestic agendas. Their debt
problems arose mainly from the misconduct of local elites and
Western-dominated financial markets.”
China too had a part to play in potentially raising bad debts in
belt and road projects as its fragmented development financing
system failed to conduct proper due diligence and risk assessments
of many target projects, Hameiri added.
“[The Chinese system] is designed to externalise China’s
[industrial] overcapacity problem, and due to the desire of
state-owned enterprises to implement projects, the underlying
tendency on the Chinese side is to approve projects and financing,”
said Hameiri.
Almost every belt and road “[The Chinese system] is designed to
externalise China’s [industrial] overcapacity problem, and due to
the desire of state-owned enterprises to implement projects, the
underlying tendency on the Chinese side is to approve projects and
financing,” said Hameiri.
Almost every belt and road loan now requires some form of
renegotiation, although asset seizures or debt forgiveness are
rare, Jones said.
In Africa, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo and Angola have already
succeeded in renegotiating their debts to China. Aside from
specific renegotiations on its Mombasa – Nairobi line, Kenyan
Treasury officials said they had also sought general debt relief
from China.
CCCC, CBRC and the Chinese Embassy in Kenya did not respond to
requests for comment. now requires some form of renegotiation,
although asset seizures or debt forgiveness are rare, Jones
said.
In Africa, Ethiopia, the Republic of Congo and Angola have already
succeeded in renegotiating their debts to China. Aside from
specific renegotiations on its Mombasa – Nairobi line, Kenyan
Treasury officials said they had also sought general debt relief
from China.
CCCC, CBRC and the Chinese Embassy in Kenya did not respond to
requests for comment.
