Investments have consequences

[Don1]

China Builds The Biggest Port In Africa

April 8, 2013: China is investing $10 billion to build a new port at Bagamoyo (northwest of Dar es Salaam) and improve infrastructure related to the port improvement. This will make it possible to greatly increase trade. This mainly consists of shipping raw materials to China and bringing Chinese manufactured goods in. Among the imports will be most of the components for the ports and Chinese mines and other infrastructure projects in the region.

The new port will be able to handle 20 million cargo containers a year. The current port facilities at Dar es Salaam can only handle 800,000 containers a year. New roads and railroads will connect to existing road and railroad networks, and these will also undergo upgrades. This will make Tanzania the main port for raw materials coming out of and goods going into Malawi, Zambia, Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda.

This makes Tanzania a major East African shipping destination because Bagamoyo will become the largest port in Africa and one of the biggest in the region (which includes the Persian Gulf).

Although China made it clear that these facilities will not be used by the Chinese Navy, Chinese firms will run (as well as build) the facilities, and getting an agreement from Tanzania to allow Chinese warships to come by for supplies and shore leave should not be a problem.

The Chinese government has refused several navy requests for overseas bases but as more Chinese warships operate in the Indian Ocean, and off East Africa, there will be a need for ports where these can reliably obtain fuel, supplies, and some repairs. What better port than one run by a Chinese company.

China has a similar deal with Pakistan, where the port of Gwadar (located near the Iranian border) is being upgraded by China. The Chinese plan to also build a naval base that would be used by Pakistani and Chinese warships and aircraft. This would be a Pakistani naval base, which the Chinese Navy having access.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htl.../20130408.aspx

[Gamma]

They plan 100 years at a time. The Chinese culture, business and political has a solid history and must contribute to the fact that it has been around for such a long time.

Remember how they outmanoevred the US in the trade treaties?!

[Sir X]

Visionary , trade and military route sealed up for life,east africa .hhmmmm, Jamaica take heed .

[Sir X]

In just 40 years the world will be of a different economic hue ,that will take away the west hold on all third world and developing nations, Mexico will be the 7 largest economy in 20 to 40 years , Brazil by then might be # 3 or 4 .

These spehers the Brics have one thing in common decrease 3rd world and developing nations dependence on the west , so that they (BRICS) have a louder voice , make no mistake about it ,not that the 3rd world or developing world has a voice but the Brics do, it so happens that its in their interest.

How Jamaica manuevers these waters will be the key to its future development , and there is plenty of room to manuver as these Brics economy grow , I hope Jamaica diversifys its market with the Brics .

No doubt they will set up a Bank or Banks to break the hold of the IMF/World Bank and no doubt the IMF/World Bank will be more sympathetic to our lending terms as the competition gets fiercer.

The quicker our leaders adapt to this , the better instead of running to the IMF/World Bank every 5 years like beggars.

[Willi]

So we screwed then?

[Sir X]

Seems so with all this oppourtunity and everyone around us with good growth / good leaders , we are screwed.

We have none , the game seems to be flipping loans or borrowing.

[Muadib]

That game started after a certain leader was rejected...

Live and Learn.. well hopefully learn.. don't see any sign of that yet..under a democratic system a country gets the leadership it DESERVES...

Capiche ?

[Sir X]

Especially with weak opposition , seriously what does Jamaica predicament say about the JLP, we know the PNP mash up the country,so what about the JLP ?

Whats its respsonsibility in all this mess ? was it so bad that people elected the lesser of two evils or so good that people just couldnt believe it to be true , is the truth in between ?

My opinion is the JLP was that bad , and my reasons are simple , its governance was reflected by its internal politics , cut throat back stabbing ,grabbing power hungry fools and it came off as such to the nation,e.g of that was Seaga rise and fall from power and Bruce rise and fall .

The masses would rather a unified corrupted shitstem , than a divided imploding one.

[Muadib]

More Cyar, Gyal, Cellphone..

Bitter Pill or JEEP ?

Certain 'leadership' knows the people...

Capiche ?

[Sir X]

Got yuh . and the JLP only know themselves.

[Muadib]

Well they do know how to grow an Economy.. that we know... ask Claude Clarke..

[Don1]

Seaga actually started the massive debt accumulation in the 1980s even while he received huge US grants as Reagan's likkle pet project...

Patterson tun it up big time... Ditto Driva

Babylon re Seaga in 1986:

Today, Jamaica's great promise remains unfulfilled. To be sure declines in world prices for bauxite and alumina, principal Jamaican commodities, have slowed the government's development programs leading to heavy borrowing abroad and a 3.2 billion foreign debt

As Seaga meets with top U.S. officials this week, they must make it clear that continuation of the nearly 1 billion in U.S. aid given to Jamaica since 1980 is contingent upon the rapid structural reforms that will ignite the power of free market forces for the country's 2.3 million inhabitants.

It can be claimed that circumstances dictate debt accumulation....but dem dere is di fax..Vroom!!!!!

[Muadib]

Seaga produced as high as 8% growth coming out of massive GDP hit and a wrecked economy care of Manley..

What did PJ produce.. ?

Tek wheh yuh almshouse propaganda yute..

Read Claude Clarke revelations and educate yuhself and yuh household..

[Don1]

Easy yuhself tribalist...

Mi nuh bizniz wid Claude Clarke an yuh confirmation bias...mi ah deal wid Whirl Bank data...nat JLP tribal talking points

The World Bank identifies three main obstacles to growth in the Jamaican economy: Crime, low human capital and productivity and lopsided fiscal and budget-management practices and policies. Jamaica is clearly following the neoliberal polices being recommended by the World Bank, generally, and on all there areas the Government is committed to reforms. What is interesting is the bank's review of Jamaica's economic performance, beginning in the 1950s. In the 1950s, there was robust growth of approximately six per cent, and in the 1960s, 2.9 per cent.

In the 1970s, growth began to decline, and in the 1980s "economic growth remained poor despite efforts to revitalise the market economy". Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) propaganda notwithstanding.

The World Bank explains that "the statist reform was extremely costly for Jamaica without any clear economic gain, and the market-oriented reversal in the early 1980s took years before beginning to bear fruit." By 1985, real GDP was actually 35 per cent lower than in 1972 - retreating to its 1960 level. GDP growth did accelerate in the second half of the 1980s but, in the past 20 years, real per capita GDP has increased on average only one per cent.

[Sir X]

Tell Clarke to talk to Timothy Ashby

Jamaica's Seaga in U.S. for Talks About Debt
September 03, 1986|Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Edward Seaga of Jamaica arrived unannounced Tuesday for two days of talks on his country's $3.2-billion foreign debt and a worsening political situation.

An aide to Seaga, Don Brice, said the prime minister would be talking with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, major lenders to Third World countries.


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Earlier this year the fund and bank urged a series of austerity policies on Seaga, in addition to the tax increases and reduced government spending he had already adopted.

Seaga had an appointment Wednesday with Barber Conable, the new head of the bank.

Brice said in a telephone interview that Seaga will not be seeing President Reagan or Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Robert Levine, a Treasury Department spokesman, said Seaga had no appointment with Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III either.

Jamaica is not on Baker's list of 15 heavily indebted countries for which the United States has been seeking help from international lenders on condition that they adopt more conservative policies.

Seaga's Jamaica Labor Party was badly defeated at local elections in July by the People's National Party of former Prime Minister Michael Manley. Manley's left-of-center policies included strong ties with Cuba.

Seaga broke relations with Cuba, Jamaica's close neighbor, soon after he came to power in 1980.

The prime minister has said he has no intention of holding national elections soon. His term expires in 1988.

Seaga's arrival was preceded by sharp words from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress which does not often criticize foreign governments. The GAO called Seaga's government slow to act on policy changes it promised.

It quoted an unnamed member of a U. S. mission to Jamaica as saying it was hard to negotiate "because the Jamaican prime minister believed he could bypass AID (the U. S. Agency for International Development) and go directly to the U. S. president when he objected to U. S. conditions."

Timothy Ashby, an analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a study group which usually supports conservative causes, called Seaga's government a disastrous failure despite nearly $1 billion in U. S. aid.

"Because Edward Seaga is identified so closely with the Reagan Administration," Ashby wrote, "the failure of his economic revitalization program will be viewed internationally as a setback for U. S. development and regional security policies."