China advances in Africa, the Silk Road lands in Algeria
The Silk Road lands in Algeria. Here's how and why
The Silk Road lands in Algeria.
As Agenzia Nova reports, an economic and technical cooperation agreement was signed Monday in Algiers between the Algerian Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Agency for International Development Cooperation, on the sidelines of a visit by a high-level delegation of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
COOPERATION AGREEMENT SIGNED BETWEEN ALGERIA AND CHINA: INFRASTRUCTURE AND INVESTMENT EXCHANGE LOANS
According to the official Algerian news agency "Aps", the mission of the Chinese delegates offers the opportunity to "promote and develop relations between the two countries, in particular in the sectors of infrastructure, public works, transport, trade and investments, as well as higher education, scientific research and new technologies ", without forgetting" the coordination and solidarity between the two countries in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic ".
However, the agreement can be considered as "a first Algerian step in the new Chinese Silk Road", wrote the national newspaper "Echorouk". With the signing of the agreement on Monday, the largest country on the continent is a candidate to become a strategic hub for the entry of Chinese goods into Africa. All this, of course, in exchange for huge investments in infrastructure and ultra-advantageous loans granted by the state banks of Beijing.
THE CENTER OF THE AGREEMENT IS THE CONSTRUCTION OF A PORT IN EL HAMDANIA
The real centerpiece of Monday's agreement is in fact the construction of the deep-sea port of El Hamdania, one of the largest seaports in the world with an estimated cost of six billion dollars and a construction process that is expected to take about seven years.
According to a study published in 2018, the port will occupy an area of 310 hectares, while about 1,916 hectares will be destined for logistic areas, i.e. dry ports and temporary land transit areas for containers, which will then be transported to the African Sahel countries through the trans-Saharan highway linking Algeria to the city of Lagos, Nigeria, passing through a series of African countries.
As Professor Michael Tanchum, senior fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (Aies) explained to “Agenzia Nova”, “Morocco has recently overtaken Spain as the largest container capacity in the Mediterranean. Rabat is exploiting its ports and its developing high-speed rail network to create a commercial transit corridor from Africa to Europe ”. Hence, the Algerian structure will act as a commercial hub in the Mediterranean competing with the port of Tanger-Med in Morocco.
"The port of Hamdania", continues Tanchum, "will help ensure that Algeria is not marginalized in the race for Euro-African commercial connectivity," added the academic.
WITH THE NEW PORT, ALGERIA AIMS TO COMPETE WITH THE PORT OF TANGER-MED, TUNISIA AND NIGERIA
The port of El Hamdania could also compete with Tunisia, which is also interested in using its seaports as a key transport hub for a hypothetical Africa-Europe trade corridor. The ambition of the Algerians to make El Hamdania the Mediterranean coastal hub of a commercial corridor that also extends to Lagos, Nigeria, but here the factor at stake is the "state of the trans-African highway", warns Professor Tanchum.
For the Algerian president Tebboune, on the other hand, "the strategic objective of this port is to remove African countries that do not have seaports from isolation". As the Algerian economist Ibrahim Gandouzi points out, "the African continent is preparing to approve the free trade area at the beginning of 2021 and for this appropriate conditions must be established". Gandouzi adds that "the countries of West Africa and the African coast receive goods imported through Cameroon: the port of El Hamdania will provide a mix between sea and land transport of goods, reducing costs and times".
BYE BYE TRIESTE
For the Chinese, however, it went badly in Trieste, where last week – despite the solemn signing of the agreements on the Silk Road last year – Hamburger Hafen und Logistik Ag (Hhla ), operator of the port of Hamburg, is in about to become the main shareholder of the Port Logistics Platform, making the Adriatic city an important hub for the integration of logistic and port networks between ports in Northern and Southern Europe ( here and here the insights from Start Magazine ).
The investment, reads a note, will give rise to the "creation of a leading group in Europe, able to develop in Trieste a terminal serving the sea-rail system of Central Eastern European countries, with the strategic objective to integrate the logistic and port networks of northern and southern Europe ".
According to the president of the Port System Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea, the agreement with the German group demonstrates that “the most complete implementation of the Silk Road does not end with the Chinese-style Belt And Road Initiative. Until now, there was a lack of a strong European vision capable of integrating and balancing points of view and interests from Asia ”, says Zeno D'Agostino.
MEANWHILE IN TARANTO
Where Chinese investments have attracted a lot of attention is in the port of Taranto, to the point of having to bother Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte who said that there is "no Chinese alarm: the investments underway in the port of Taranto are a signal of attractiveness towards large foreign groups ».
The president of the Port Authority of Taranto, Sergio Prete, is even more convinced. «There is a great opportunity ahead of us, which is to bring Taranto to the center of an international project on several fronts: commercial, industrial and tourism. The agreements signed in these hours give us the decisive push to be able to give this opportunity to the city and to our entrepreneurs, ”he told the newspaper Repubblica yesterday.
As for relations with China, Prete minimizes: «I feel I can say that they do not exist, or in any case there is nothing that could represent a danger to national security, as some have said. A part is managed by the Turks of Ylport, who are however partners of the Chinese of Cosco.
Another hot point is that the newly signed agreement opens the doors of an area abandoned for decades to a very important industrial settlement such as that of the Ferretti group, world leader, which will build shells for yachts in Taranto.
The problem is that the Ferretti share package is in the hands of a Chinese group, Weichai .
“But the management”, Prete emphasizes, “is entirely Italian. And I exclude that the operation is different from what it appears: that is an important investment in industrial development. Here we talk about the production of hulls. Neither 5G nor any other business. I don't see what the difficulty of an investment like Ferretti's could be. We made a tender, for which no one, except them, came forward. The assessment of the remediation project is now underway. Taranto will only have benefits ».
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/la-cina-avanza-in-africa-la-via-della-seta-sbarca-in-algeria/ on Wed, 14 Oct 2020 08:20:36 +0000.