Sudan, China agree to invest in solar energy

December 21, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan and China have agreed to setup a factory for panel solar cells and boost investment to cover the needs of local and regional markets, reported Sudan’s official news Agency SUNA on Tuesday.

The new investment will be undertaken by Sudanese and Chinese companies from the private and public sector as agreed in a meeting held yesterday between Sudan’s Industry Minister Awad Ahmad al-Jazz and a delegation of China’s LuQu steel pole company.

SUNA quoted Al-Jazz as hailing the progressing economic and industrial relations between the two countries, saying that the partnership between Sudan and China is “permanent.”

For his part, the head of the Chinese company delegation revealed that the volume of his company’s investment in Sudan had recently reached 18 million US dollars after the company implemented a number of construction projects in the Red Sea State and central Sudan.

SUNA said the meeting had agreed to establish a factory to produce panel solar cells and boos investment in the field of solar energy in order to cover the needs of local, Arab and African markets.

China is the largest foreign investor in Sudan, particularly in the petroleum sector and buys two thirds of Sudanese oil output. China National Petroleum Corp. owns 40 percent — the largest single share — of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., a consortium that dominates Sudan’s oil fields in partnership with the national energy company and firms from Malaysia and India.

About 75% of Sudan’s proven reserves of 6.3bn barrels are in the south, which is widely expected to secede in 2011, but the pipeline that carries the oil to export terminals and refineries runs through the north.

(ST)