The Chinese ambassador to Eritrea has announced the start of joint mining of copper, gold, zinc and silver. A long-standing project, which should bring in 11.8 billion dollars.
China accelerates its expansion in Eritrea
Omar Lucien Koffi
https://lejournaldelafrique.com/la-chin ... a%2F&=1
1 month ago
(Google translation from French)
Baron
Edmond James de Rothschild said:
When blood flows on the streets, you have to invest in stone.
And as the eyes of the world are averted from the simmering conflict in Tigray, China is taking the plunge, after years of negotiations with Eritrea's President
Isaias Afwerki. Since 2013 already, the Eritrean national mining company ENAMCO has been looking for investors for four vast mining fields.
In the end, it only took seven months for China to convince Asmara to create a joint venture (60-40%) which would take over all the mining sites. Copper, zinc, gold and silver, mined by the new Sino-Eritrean Asmara Mining Share Company (AMSC), which are expected to bring
$692 million in net revenue to Eritrea every year for at least 17 years.
The four sites concerned by the extraction of ores would contain at least 380,000 tons of copper, 850,000 tons of zinc, 12 tons of gold and 312 tons of silver according to the specialist in Eritrea
Matteo Palamidesse. According to him, the AMSC
starts its activity in very good conditions.
After extraction, the ores will be purified and crushed in Eritrea, then transported by sea to Chinese smelters.
China kicks Eritrea's 'masters of the world'
Palamidesse also explains that the region exploited by the mining company is one of the most geologically important in the world. It notably contains the largest potassium deposit in the world, operated by an Australian company. The new project with China should give Beijing control of the open-pit copper mine with the best quality in the world, equivalent to more than 2% of the world's copper.
Also, Chinese investment in the “
Asmara Project” eliminates competition from two of the largest investment funds in the world that were interested. Namely the Americans BlackRock and Vanguard – the same investment fund that controls all the pharmaceutical companies in the world, as well as Apple, WhatsApp, Youtube, Facebook and Amazon.
The project with China is of great economic importance for the President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki. Since the start of the Tigray war, Afwerki has been increasingly isolated, under a UN arms embargo and economic sanctions from the European Union (EU). Despite all this, and the accusations of war crimes in Ethiopia, Afwerki had every chance of reconciling with the West. The Eritrean president is, however, a very long-standing Maoist.
Afwerki prepares his succession
However, in quick succession, Eritrea was the first African country to support Russia before the United Nations. Moscow has been the only supplier of weapons to Eritrea for more than two years. Then, Afwerki refused to meet the EU envoy for the Horn of Africa,
Annette Weber. According to
Africa Intelligence, the latter is in the process of being replaced by Italian diplomat and lobbyist
Gianluca Grippa. On the other hand, Eritrea accepted the mediation of China's special envoy,
Xue Bing, in the Tigray ceasefire .
What align Eritrea totally against the West, Isaias Afwerki is now counting on China and Russia diplomatically, in the energy and infrastructure sectors, now in the mining sector. In power for 29 years, Afwerki could also get ill.
Opening Eritrea to Chinese companies will therefore guarantee an increase of more than 30% in GDP, just with the Asmara Project. But as Afwerki gradually withdraws from Tigray, while preparing his succession in Eritrea, he seems preoccupied with the legacy of his three decades in power.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, his student years in Mao Zedong's China
