RE: Green light?4 May 2019 00:01
“About half of Bangladesh’s population doesn’t have access to electricity, according to a report from China’s embassy in the country. The government in Dhaka has therefore decided to double its electricity generating capacity to 24,000 megawatts by 2021.
As one of the largest foreign banks in Bangladesh, HSBC has so far provided more than US$1.1 billion in loans to finance four power plants in the country. Chinese companies have invested in three of these projects.
What Bangladesh hopes to gain from milestone visit by China’s Xi Jinping
One of them is the Shahjibazar power plant, with a generating capacity of 300MW. It is a joint venture between Guangdong Power Engineering Corporation and Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute, with financing of US$280 million.
Another is a 100MW oil-fired plant in Chapainawabganj in northwestern Bangladesh, with financing of about US$109 million, that was built by Hubei Electric Engineering Corporation, a state-owned company under Power China.
And last year, HSBC provided US$333 million in financing to re-power Unit 3 of the Ghorasal plant in central Bangladesh, involving a consortium of China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation and General Electric.
China still has a hefty trade surplus with Bangladesh and remains the world’s largest apparel exporter. But as Bangladesh’s infrastructure improves and more Chinese companies head to the country to take advantage of low labour costs and favourable tax policies from local governments, it is looking to export more finished products to China.
Looking to the future of Bangladesh’s role in China’s belt and road strategy, Rahman said it was too soon to tell. “It’s not about what it is today, it’s about what it can become tomorrow.””
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