Chapter 281 Start Development
In the Republic of Kolo, after Jammeh Bongo took office as president, he began to fulfill his previous promises.
The Colot government has launched negotiations with three French mining companies that own phosphate mines in the country on the distribution of interests in the mines.
In the process, they passed a resolution suspending exports from the phosphate mines owned by these companies in Colo.
In this regard, these French companies were naturally not willing to give up their interests at first.
They even put pressure on the Colo government through the French Embassy in Colo.
However, at this time, the Colo government already had evidence of collusion between former head of state Nassin Dema and the other party. In the face of pressure from France, its attitude was still relatively tough.
And in matters involving safeguarding the country's mineral interests, Kolo has also received support from international organizations including the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States.
In addition, phosphate is an important raw material and is widely used in chemical fertilizers, food processing, detergents, metallurgy, water treatment, building materials, medicine, feed, and petrochemical industries.
As the fourth largest exporter of phosphate ore in Africa, Colo's suspension of exports to these French mining companies has also affected global phosphate ore prices.
At this time, a visiting team composed of British companies arrived in Colo, including British companies such as Argos Retail Group, Stuart Mining Group and Devonhill Ecological Agriculture Company.
This visit finally led to these British companies and the Colo government to achieve good results.
Among them, Primark clothing chain, a subsidiary of Argos retail group, will invest in setting up a factory in Colo for clothing production.
Kolo itself is a cotton-producing country. Their domestic cotton exports also account for a considerable part of their total exports, and they have a certain textile industry foundation.
In fact, not only Kolo, but many countries in Africa have been exporting large amounts of cotton. However, after exporting raw materials, they often need to import a large amount of ready-made clothes. Therefore, the price of clothing in Africa can be regarded as relatively low. expensive.
Primark Clothing Chain's investment in Colo is, on the one hand, to support the development of Colo's textile industry and to use Africa's rich raw material resources to improve Colo's textile industry chain.
At the same time, taking advantage of Kolo's low labor costs and geographical advantages close to the raw material production areas will help Primark clothing chain further reduce the cost of ready-made clothing products and increase its competitiveness.
Primark clothing chain plans to start building a factory in Colo before the end of the year.
The factory aims to increase the production of ready-made garments, including dresses, shirts and children's clothing, for export to international markets.
The total investment amount of the project is estimated at 25 million euros, and the United Bank for West Africa (UBWA) will provide it with a loan of 9.84 billion West African CFA francs (equivalent to 15 million euros).
According to the plan, the factory will cover an area of 3.7 hectares and create about 2,000 local jobs in Colo.
This factory will be mainly invested by the Primark clothing chain, and will be operated and managed by their largest OEM factory in China. Primark holds 80% of the factory's shares.
After completion, this factory will become the largest clothing production enterprise in Kolo.
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Stuart Mining Group has obtained the mining rights of an iron ore in the Plateau District. They will set up a joint venture with the state-owned National Development and Investment Company of Colo to invest in this Mining of high-quality iron ore.
The joint venture, named Colo Stuart Mining Company, will be 60% owned by Stuart Mining Group and 40% by Colo National Development Investment Company.
To put it bluntly, this joint venture will be mainly operated by Stuart Mining Group.
Mining local iron ore through their experience and advanced technology.
The Kolo National Development Investment Company, which is owned by the Kolo state, simply converts their original licensing fees for iron ore mining into shares to obtain income.
I have to say that this method is more streamlined.
In addition to Stuart Mining Group, Devonshire Ecological Agriculture will also invest in Colo. They will invest in building a factory in Colo for further processing of cash crops.
The main cash crops of Colo include coffee, cocoa beans, etc. The factory invested by Devonshire Ecological Agriculture Company will further process these products and ship them to the European market for sale. .
It is also because of Colo's friendly attitude towards British-owned enterprises that they have received support from the British side. The two parties have finalized that Colo President Jaime Bongo will lead a delegation to visit the UK next month to finalize a series of cooperation and assistance agreement.
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Under the combination of these factors, after half a month of negotiations, the Colot government finally reached an agreement with three French mining companies.
Coupled with the unreceived shares of the Nassin Dema family in three French mining companies, the three companies will give a total of 40% of their respective local companies in Colo to Colo National Development Investment The company holds.
This means that they will sell 40% of the profits from the output of these phosphate mines - in fact, before this, they have already given the Nassin Dema family each 25% of the shares, so calculate After all, it was only 15% more sold...
This is already easier than the initial proposal of the Colo government to recover more than 60% of the shares through additional penalties and redemption. accepted by them.
The Colo National Development Investment Company will serve as the main company holding state-owned assets in certain industries in Colo and will be directly managed by the Colo Ministry of Finance.
In addition, they also established the Caulo Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) to invest in and increase the value of state-owned assets and support the development of some local enterprises.
The source of funds for the Kolo Industrial Investment Fund is part of the profits of the National Development Investment Corporation and part of it comes from national financial allocations.
It can also be regarded as a sovereign fund of Kolo’s own country.
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Almost at the same time, the West African Group acquired the remaining 40% shares of the capital Loti Port, thus fully controlling the best port in West Africa.
And based on this, they formed the West African Ports Group.
West African Ports Group has received a £500 million loan from Standard Chartered Bank for the expansion and renovation project of Loti Port.
Lotti Port currently has two terminals. The originally built terminal only had a designed annual throughput of 400,000 tons.
Even after the second terminal opened in 1984, the annual throughput of Loti Port did not exceed 1 million.
And now, the aging and obsolete equipment of Loti Port Terminal and low carrying capacity have become factors restricting the development of the port.
You should know that Loti Port is currently the most prosperous port in West Africa, and its development speed has exceeded the ports of many countries in the region.
The current Loti Port covers an area of 900 hectares (of which the water area is 81 hectares) and can dock 8-10 cargo ships at the same time. The port has 9 warehouses with a total area of 110,000 square meters.
It is located in the center of the Gulf of Benin, with very convenient transportation. It can radiate to all countries in the Gulf of Guinea and penetrate deep into the hinterland of West Africa.
Therefore, it is not only an important commodity distribution center on the West African coast, but also a cargo transshipment point for foreign trade in the inland countries of West Africa.
The £500 million loan obtained by the West African Ports Group this time will be used to build two deep-water terminals in Loti Port and expand the original two terminals.
And the port equipment will be updated and large trucks used for transportation will be added.
According to their plan, it is expected that within two years, the annual cargo throughput of Loti Port will increase from the current 1 million tons to 5 million tons.
After the completion of the new construction and renovation of Loti Port, it will be able to reach an annual throughput of 10 million tons, becoming the first in West Africa and the third largest port in Africa!
(End of this chapter)