Eventually the Chinese Cosco will take over a piece of the port of Hamburg
After long disputes, the Chinese Cosco will be able to take over 24.9 percent of a terminal in the port of Hamburg. Here's what happened in Germany. The article by Pierluigi Mennitti from Berlin
The decision has come. After months of disputes , the Chinese state group Cosco can therefore take over 24.9% of one of the three container terminals in the port of Hamburg. The German government has unblocked the minority stake of the Chinese company Cosco Shipping Ports Limited in the Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT), as announced by the Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), the operating company of the Hanseatic port. "All issues within the investment appraisal procedure were able to be clarified together in intensive and constructive discussions," explained the Hamburg-based company.
The federal government, for its part, confirmed in a note that "the revision of the purchase agreements are in line with the conditions of a limited acquisition". Originally the negotiations concerned the acquisition of 35% of the terminal, then political conflicts within the German government itself suggested to the chancellor Olaf Scholz to find a compromise solution on a threshold that did not exceed 25%.
Now HHLA has carte blanche to develop the terminal as a preferred handling point for Cosco, a long-standing customer, where cargo flows between Asia and Europe would be concentrated. This is what the port operating company itself, which is owned by the city administration, explained with a certain emphasis.
CHINA IS EVEN MORE KEY TO TRADE THAN GERMANY
China is currently the largest trading partner of Germany and the Port of Hamburg. About 30% of the goods handled in the Hanseatic port come from or are bound for China. For HHLA, as well as for the entire entrepreneurial political apparatus of the powerful Hanseatic city that has rallied around this project, “Cosco's minority stake guarantees employment and reinforces Hamburg's national and international importance as a logistics and of Germany as an industrial nation".
THE DISPUTE IN THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT ABOUT COSCO AND HAMBURG
As mentioned, initially Cosco wanted to take over 35% of the operating company of Container Terminal Tollerort GmbH. But a bitter political dispute has erupted in the federal government over whether to allow Chinese participation. Last October, the cabinet decided on a so-called partial ban, which allows Cosco to acquire only less than a 25% stake. Any further acquisitions above this threshold were prohibited.
But the tug-of-war within the government did not end with the ploy found by Scholz, who, even as a former mayor of Hamburg, had followed this affair personally and with total participation. And between the Chancellery and the Ministry of Economy, therefore between Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Robert Habeck (Verdi) an underground chess game continued with moves and countermoves that lasted until the last moment.
According to information gathered by the journalistic investigative pool of the NDR and WDR regional public broadcasters (covering news in northwestern Germany), the chancellery prevailed against the will of the economy ministry to start a new examination procedure.
It was precisely a journalistic investigation by the two television networks (and by the Süddeutsche Zeitung ) that revealed in recent weeks that the Tollerort terminal had only recently been classified as a critical infrastructure.
Habeck therefore spoke in favor of launching an entirely new review procedure that would re-evaluate the scope of an investment in critical infrastructure. However, a decision by the entire council of ministers was required to initiate this new procedure. But there was no opening on the part of the chancellery.
Official statements now indicate the different position within the federal government. The confirmation of the entry was communicated by the federal government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, while a spokesman for the Ministry of Economy explained: "There have been different assessments in the evaluation of the acquisition of the stake". Thus admitting a distance that now, once the decision is taken, will remain only on the minutes of the discussions in the Cabinet Council.
WHAT DO ENTREPRENEURS THINK?
On the other hand, those expressing unreserved satisfaction is the association of German industrialists, the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI). For Tanja Gönner, CEO of BDI, “the government's decision to release the minority stake is good for Germany as an investment location and an import and export country. The economic competitiveness and technological sovereignty of Germany and the EU require a fundamental openness to foreign investment in our region, including those from China”.
However, what clearly emerges from Gönner's statements is the position of the German business world towards the growing doubts about economic relations with China, advanced in government with ever greater force by the Greens. “It is reasonable to expand economic relations with China, even in the face of growing geopolitical tensions”, explains Gönner, “China is also a partner and should remain so in our economic and political interests”.
It seems to read not too much between the lines a sort of stop to the attempt to put China on the same level as Russia. Having lost a market (above all for energy), German entrepreneurs are not willing to see a second stolen from them. And Gönner's concluding words make it clear the interpretation that Germany should give to the new European mantra on China: "The triad of China as a competitor and system rival, but also as a partner, introduced by the EU Commission in 2019 and reaffirmed in the agreement coalition, is the right approach,” says the BDI. Few words to the wise.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cosco-porto-amburgo-quota/ on Thu, 11 May 2023 11:36:08 +0000.