China's overland Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road Thread

SampanViking

The Capitalist
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Well said wolf. I think the AIIB is use mainly for the marine route and the Silk Road Fund is used for the land route

These financing vehicles/packages are never quite that straightforward.
The AIIB is a government level financing vehicle that will only deal at the Highest Level. It is a commissioning Bank and it will deal with a local actioning Institution, which itself will deal with the actual project and the head contractors. Further, the financing is highly unlikely to be the sole body of finance, but will negotiate packages at top level for other State and Private banks, Institutions and Governmental/NGO's to invest as well. In addition other participants may be involved at lower levels as well.
The primary function of a Bank such as the AIIB (other than provide a proportion of finance) is to provide confidence to all the other parties.

I will try and give you a hypothetical example of what this would mean in practice and based on the type of structures discussed in the document.

Lets say that a specific project is a 500km stretch of one of the Silk Road corridors somewhere in one the Central Asian Stans.
The proposition includes
A 500km connecting stretch of multilane highway
A 500km connecting stretch of upgraded goods railway
A 500km connecting stretch of new HSR - part of a new Beijing - Moscow Line
A logistics Hub in the Provincial Capital
A new Int Free Trade Economic Zone/Business Park
A Dam and Hydro Power Project
Two other Power Stations and transmission lines
Oil Pipeline from adjacent Oil Fields and Storage facility/rail transfer yard
Significant property building and amenity provision in city, for expected massive expansion.

Each part is a substantial project in its own right. Each section needs to liaise with the connecting projects at either end, some of which may be across national borders.

Each country will then have a national co-ordination body that will oversee all the sections within its borders. Greater coordination, across borders will use Regional bodies like the SCO.

The national Co-ordinating body will provide oversight for all the projects and will deal with major lenders like the AIIB. The body will sit down with the AIIB and other banks and lenders and arrange/negotiate funding packages for each section and indeed individual areas within it.

Just to make life even more interesting, some aspects may be purely local, but some (such as the HST connection) would be part of a single project, with a single main contractor building its full length. Others can be localised and just joined up - with a lot of co-ordination of standards and timing etc (as precisely discussed in the document).

So what sort of package would you see:
The AIIB putting in a generous percentage of the full cost and looking for local banks and government to match it on a proportional basis. Other funding to come from specific national, Regional (like the Silk Road Fund) or even UN grants, while some elements funded entirely by Industry (Oil Companies) etc.
The key is that the project will be implemented and financed via a phased plan and will likely contain elements long planned (maybe even financed) in isolation.
Investors; albeit Government, Private and Industrial are a nervous bunch and so it really will take a funding body backed by many of the worlds richest nations and driven primarily by one of the richest to actually overcome the caution and give all parties the confidence to commit and invest.

Sorry if this is long winded and hypotheticals can be dangerous.
Maybe it would easier to say, that the number of different funding sources and the institutions in all the countries of the Silk Road corridors is like a bowl full of noodles. The job of the AIIB is to help separate and stretch those noodles so they line up neatly and connect seamlessly with each other.
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Has anyone else seen the KKH development that China is doing? The link between Pakistan and China is being upgraded the last one was built in the 1970s and this new one will greatly increase trade

Taken from China news

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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
The Longest Tunnel on KKH (4485mt) will connect Gojal to Central Hunza in the mid of 2015. CRBC

January 01: China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a construction company from China successfully completed the longest tunnel (4485 meter) over on new alignment to connect traffic from Central Hunza to Gojal Upper Hunza, which has been suspended for five years due to the Attabad Lake. CRBC arranged a colorful ceremony on 30th December 2014 to celebrate this historic millstone.

According to CRBC officials, this realignment of KKH (24km) including two tunnels, seven large-high and 2 small bridges, 70 culverts and 80.583 cum retaining walls will be completed and opened for all traffics by mid of 2015.
 

solarz

Brigadier
I see this as a very pragmatic and long term plan based on building relationships as much as roads and railways.

At its heart, is the economic blueprint for sustained Chinese prosperity for the next century, which will help ensure Chinese interests for the next millennium.

Wolf, this is one of the most insightful posts in this thread! You bring up an excellent point about China's infrastructure economy. This plan essentially opens up a huge market for China's infrastructure builders, and where infrastructure goes, manufacturing follows. This is pretty much the economic blueprint of the Chinese economy for the next 20 years.
 

no_name

Colonel
Looking at the list of founding members and those who have applied to be a part of the AIIB I see some non-participants notable because one would think they would want to participate due to their geographic location:
- Turkmenistan
- Afghanistan
- Iran
- Also not a single African country signed up if we consider Egypt being really a part of the Middle East.

Interesting that Turkmenistan is also the only one of the central asian stans not in the SCO.
 

Dizasta1

Senior Member
The Longest Tunnel on KKH (4485mt) will connect Gojal to Central Hunza in the mid of 2015. CRBC

January 01: China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a construction company from China successfully completed the longest tunnel (4485 meter) over on new alignment to connect traffic from Central Hunza to Gojal Upper Hunza, which has been suspended for five years due to the Attabad Lake. CRBC arranged a colorful ceremony on 30th December 2014 to celebrate this historic millstone.

According to CRBC officials, this realignment of KKH (24km) including two tunnels, seven large-high and 2 small bridges, 70 culverts and 80.583 cum retaining walls will be completed and opened for all traffics by mid of 2015.

Is it true that there would also be an upgraded railway link between the two countries, through the Karakoram?
 
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