Iran, Sudan and Nigeria removed from China incentive list
March 2, 2007 (Beijing) — China has left Iran, Sudan, and Nigeria off its latest list of resource-rich countries for which it will provide financial incentives to Chinese companies to invest in, the Financial Times reported.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, the chief economic planning agency that also oversees energy policy, released the new list on Thursday.
The nine nations slated for further Chinese oil and gas investment are Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Libya, Niger, Norway, Ecuador and Bolivia.
It is not clear whether the exclusion of Iran, Sudan and Nigeria came because Chinese companies already have short-term investment plans in the three countries, or for more political reasons.
China is under pressure from both the US and the European Union to stay out of, or use its leverage in, Iran and Sudan to change the policies of both countries on nuclear issues and human rights respectively.
Iran was China’s largest supplier of crude oil in January, according to figures released on Thursday. Angola, previously the largest, was second and Saudi Arabia third.
China already has investments in some of the nine countries on Thursday’s list but the offer of incentives for further, or new, investments underlines Beijing’s determination to acquire further energy assets overseas.
China draws 80-90 per cent of its own primary energy needs from domestic supplies, mainly through coal resources.
However, it has a large and rapidly growing bill for oil imports and also raw materials such as copper, nickel and bauxite.
In purchasing foreign oil concessions and mines and the like, China is, in effect, buying the production of those fields directly for its own use, not to be sold on the global market.
The incentives offered by the government include tax breaks and soft loans from China’s large state-owned development banks.
(FT)