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Step Aside Panama Canal: China To Build Nicaragua Canal, "World's Largest Infrastructure Project Ever"
A month ago, a Nicaraguan committee approved Chinese billionaire Wang Jing's project to create The Nicaraguan Canal. With a planned capacity to accommodate ships with loaded displacement of 400,000 tons (notably bigger than The Panama Canal), the proposed 278-kilometer-long canal that will run across the Nicaragua isthmus would probably change the landscape of the world's maritime trade.
"The project is the largest infrastructure project ever in the history of man in terms of engineering difficulty, investment scale, workload and its global impact," Wang told reporters, adding that with regard the project's financing, which is around $50 billion, Wang seems quite confident, "If you can deliver, you will find all the world's money at your disposal."
Worried about conservation? Don't be: "We have 100-year concession rights, we will be responsible to ourselves, and we are there to build, not to destroy," explained Wang.
As China Global Times reports,
In the mountains and rivers of Central America, work on one of the world's largest infrastructure projects is progressing as planned, driven by Chinese billionaire Wang Jing.
...
The Nicaragua Canal, which is about four times the length of the Panama Canal, will connect the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean upon its completion. The project is estimated to cost $50 billion.
"Our canal lock is 15-meter-thick, hard steel. Imagine its size. [It'll be] the world's largest," the 41-year-old Wang said.
The Nicaragua Canal project is just one of many giant infrastructure projects commenced by Chinese around the world.
There are at least another five megaprojects that are currently being planned or under construction, including the $32 billion China-Pakistan economic corridor and the $1.7 billion Baltic Pearl Project, according to media reports.
...
Wang's company secured a 50-year concession for the canal and an extension right of another 50 years.
Panama Canal competitor?
Wang said the Nicaragua Canal will be able to accommodate ships with a displacement of 400,000 tons.
Wang dismissed speculation that the canal he is building would become a competitor to the Panama Canal.
"The Panama Canal won't fit my clients' ships. After expansion, they can only accommodate ships up to 150,000 tons. But our canal offers an alternative route for those sailing across the Panama Canal," he said.
"The world's leading shipbuilders have already commenced research projects to design and build ships especially for the Nicaragua Canal," Wang said.
Analysts said that currently ships with a displacement of 400,000 tons mainly carry crude and bulk cargo such as minerals, coal, and grains, but as trade develops, larger ships could be a trend.
Financing the $50 billion?
"If you can deliver, you will find all the world's money at your disposal," Wang said, adding that he will raise the money through combined measures of cross-shareholding, bank lending and debt issuance.
Wang estimates that his company could collect several billion US dollars worth of tolls on an annual basis, but he urged investors not to lose sight of the bigger picture.
"The canal would bring huge benefits to the world's seaborne trade. It will make large-scale, low-cost, high-efficiency trade possible, unlocking trade demand between the East and the West," Wang said.
"The continuously growing Chinese economy and a rising Latin America underpin a growing global maritime transport volume," Zhang Yongfeng, a Shanghai-based shipping expert, told the Global Times Monday.
Costs?
For the locals at Nicaragua, a key concern has been the man-made canal's environmental impact, particularly on the Nicaragua Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Central America.
"We have 100-year concession rights, we will be responsible to ourselves, and we are there to build, not to destroy," Wang said.
* * *
Time to print some more Yuan...
* * *
Wang concludes... when asked "Does digging a canal in the "backyard of the US" not bug you?"
"No - Free, prosperous maritime trade benefits everybody, including the US"
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Old news it's going to knowen as the Pandama canal .
$50Bn gamble on an infrastructure in the best part of the region where there is poverty is better than $50Bn to spend on arms and propping up oppressive Govt and their cronies.
China need to access the resources of South America and they will not do it thru handing money to corrupt Govt with no trickle downs to the People. They too have friends in S America (Brazil in particular). Look at what they do in Africa, the infrastructure that they build allow People to benefit from them.
Same as in SE Asia, they treat these crony Govts like toilet papers and they respond thru their MSM in stoking up fear and hates for China. Ask the people and they have different perspectives.
No one is better in understanding corruption than they themselves and they know that regimes can go but not the People in the long term who are largely satisified with small survival increments in their homelands.
This project will not be an idea packaged in securities to be peddled globally by financial predators. That's what make the banksters mad.
US can respond to tank this project by spending more in arms to control their access to this sea route and they bet that US has reached its limits.
Time for another CIA-backed government change in order to preserve the Monroe Doctrine.
Get ready for some CIA plotted civil unrest, fabricated accusations of drug trade and human right violations from the White House and State Dept. Anti-government NGOs may be mushrooming soon.
Somebody should call George Soros and ask him about his regime change plans for Nicaragua.
Lived there and will go back for more extended stays. I don't think this project, like the others, will work out. Why? Nicaraguan people still have some power...not much but enough to promote less ecological damage. Their standard of living will continue to rise without this Chinese bullshit.
If you want to visit Lago Nicaragua, better do it now. The 4 islands, 2 volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua and the small towns along its shore will be changed forever. The ecosystem in that lake will be changed as it merges with the Caribbean and Pacific and Chinese construction debris.
Oh well.
Its the Chinese who now have Yankee Ingenuity and 21st century Americans will just Washy Clothesy. Chinese clothesy.
I can imagine a Chinese military base will be built to protect its interests in Nicaragua. Sound familiar? How many bases does do 'we' have around the world to protect 'our' interests?
The fool thinks he can protect China's manufacturing base, but automation has already sealed it's fate.
the reasont to build a canal like this sounds like a big FU to the united states, but WHAT IF=====the whole point of building the canal is just for the chinese to get their spies and money into nicaragua and get influence in central america, and the canal plan itself is just a means. '
it's obvious there's no way in hell the actual project will finish construction let alone ever function, let alone ever be owned by the chinese if it did, let alone etc etc etc....right it's obviously too stupid of an idea to fathom. BUT THIS ISN'T REALLY COMMERCE, IT'S NATIONAL SECURITY SPY APPARTUS DEEP COVER.
THE CIA USES DEEP COVER ALL THE TIME. NOW THE THING THAT REALLY FUCKING SCARES ME IS THAT WHAT IF THE CHINESE ARE GOING TO USE THE CONSTRUCTION ITSELF AS A COVER FOR BUILDING HUGE INSTALLATIONS NOT ONLY FOR SPYING ON THE U.S. BUT FOR HOUSING MAJOR MISSILES . LOTS OF MISSILES. HUGE AMOUNTS OF HUGE MISSILES.
THE U.S. WOULD OBVIOUSLY SEE THIS. BUT WHAT IF THIS IS THE MASTER PLAN. THE NWO ARRANGING FOR WORLD WAR 3 AND A MUTUAL MISSILE ATTACK ON EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. WITH A FEW MILLION AMERICANS DEAD AND AMERICAN NUKES BEING DEPLOYED TO KILL A FEW HUNDRED MILLION IF NOTMORE.?
or this could just be some stupid idea that will never happen
either way that is some motherfucking alex jones shit right here.
HOW ABOUT THEM CONSPIR-APPLES!
There are some obvious trade benefits to building this new, larger canal. And that may be the only consideration.
But the Chinese are probably thinking that if the US can have its military forces running around China's backyard in the South China Sea etc, China can have its military forces running around America's backyard. Of course, Washington won't like this and may well find some pretext for inteferring with it in the latter stages of construction, that would be after China has spent billions, thereby aiming to make the costs/losses to China as large as possible.
I appreciate Chinese brain.
There is no use keeping the dumb $
Better invest in infra projects and gold.
the worrysome fact is that
china is conquering the world with construction projects
USA is conquering the world with bombs and drones
Anybody thinks 50 Billion $ is going to do the job? Then you're fucking nuts. 68 Billion $ is what Russia spent on the Sochi Winter Olympics ...
thats NO reference. Sochi was an Oligarchy scam.
Lets hope Wang is not a wanker.
" .... many giant infrastructure projects commenced by Chinese around the world. "
We knew the expression "terraformed worlds", ..... now it seems we will have a "Chinaformed" earth.
Built for a mere $50B? Bullshit.
No more sailing round the horn Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr .
My place in Costa Rica will appreciate once it becomes "island" property.
Team_CHN can't afford to buttocks this one up. Their Leadership need to create nearly a million jobs a month or so to keep the Growth Rate Number Worshippers happy; and spending 50BUSD Equivalent of Yuan on Labor and Material that actually will GENERATE REVENUE for the NEXT 100 Years for certain is much better than LOSING 50B USD to QE/Inflation.
P.S. Bonus is that they can plant Intel assets just a bit closer to the USA Homeland; and Party often in the Caribbean.
P.P.S. The Fresh Water Lake is probably going to get "damaged" by all the extras carried on the Hull and in the Bilge/Ballast/Sanitary Tanks.
P.P.S. The Fresh Water Lake is probably going to get "damaged" by all the extras carried on the Hull and in the Bilge/Ballast/Sanitary Tanks.
Yep. Right now, a tiny strip of electrified water is all that's keeping the Asian 'snakehead' fish out of the Great Lakes. Doubtless some drunken bozo is going to want one as a pet, and dump it into Lake Michigan, and the whole Great Lakes fishery will be in danger. You can see the same scenario working out there. I'm sure it will be simple to completely clean the hull of a 400,000 ton freighter so that nothing contanimates the lake. /s
THE COST WILL DOUBLE at a minimum. Nic tolls are set in daily fuel + daily hire x savings in transit time vs Magellan.. Plus the trade varies by where china sources its raw materials. Perhaps the chinese are figuring, once the canal is built.... paying for it can be someone elses responsibility. They will still benefit from its use.. This has been talked about for decades..including using nuclear devices to blast through.. Easy to draw a line on a map and measure distance.. a logistical challenge, and a future wonder of the modern world... if ever built.
To keep the numbers in perspective, the United State_ is running recurring monthly deficits of 100 billion FeRNs, enabled by the creation of an equivalent amount of cyber-FeRNs from the (not really) Federal (with no) Reserve. Meanwhile, the Chinques are desperate to convert trillions of foreign currency/bond "reserves" into hard assets.
Though the timing, relative to a decline in global commerce and collapse in shipping rates, ain't ideal, it might be better to have a Nicaraguan canal than 50 billion more worth-less cyber-FeRNs.
If this canal is such a great idea why aren't the people of Panama extremely well off financially since they have had decades of revenue from their canal?
because Panama canal does not belong to the people
Who does it belong to? With the North Sea oil revenue Norway set up a sovereign fund that benefits all the citizens of Norway. Why hasn't Panama done the same thing with canal revenue?
No more than the Suez belongs to the people of Egypt, no more than the Oil of Africa or ME belongs to the people of those regions.
Its all ours...sings the Oligarchs. And THAT won't change in Nicaragua!
Wang is no people's man. He is part of the Oligarchy breed.
But at least he is not on the US team. We do believe in competition n'est pas?
Time for them to start learning Chinese. With a project that size it will take a LOT of workers and the Chinese will bring their own workers and once they are out of China they never go back.
finally I can buy some cheap (useless canal) Panama waterfront property.
Charlie don't surf!
Will it be a toll canal?
BTW-where the are the enviroMENTALists raising hell about the enviromental impact?
I would have asked Wang Jing how many million Chinese laborers he plans to move to Nicaragua to build the canal, like they do for so many other large international projects. Whole cities of them in fact, including support service people from hair cutters to prostitutes. In other words, “Sorry Nicaraguans, no jobs for you, just kickbacks to your corrupt politicians who have already sold you out.”
Correct. Chinese money does not flow out of Chinese hands. They spend it all amongs themselves in company towns, they don't assimiliate, they don't hire locals, they don't allow locals to benefit at all.
Correct again. The Chinese "gifted" Costa Rica with a beautiful new football stadium (Saprissa). not long after Nobel Peace Prize winning Oscar Arias switched their allegiances from Taiwan to China. Exclusively Chinese labor built the whole thing.
so why hasn't obama touted this to get the kids to go back? chinese billionaires gonna give 'em all jobs anyway. oh yaaaaaaaahhh i remember why, because obama is intent on destroying our borders and creating chaos. guess someone else will have to tell the kids they have all the opportunity in the world to earn a living and be used as slave labor by the communogarchical chinese billionaires
what about los volcanoes y los earthquakes? no google research done before comment, but i feel like i remember nicaragua having potential issues with seismic activity.
oh man if the uneducated fracking haters hated fracking before, maybe cutting an entire nation in half to facilitate trade in a seismically active area will get them to start freaking out about something else.
that would be cool, but since they are uneducated they will, of course, be freaking out about some poisonous forest frog instead of potential seismic issues.
i ain't hatin forest frogs don't get me wrong. because i mean they can make you trip out of your mind so i mean that's all well and good, if that's your kind of thing
This would be a true tragedy - another blow to the planet. I've been to Nicaragua and as some others have noted the Lake and Ometepe are incredibly beautiful and the shore line below of Bluefields is basically untouched nature. One friend of mine worked on an archaelogical project in Ometepe and there are even uncataloged and unknown species!
FUCK this project!
Humans are to the planet as Ebola is to humans.
Worried about Lake Nicarauga? Don't be. A little salt and a few thousand tons of pollution will make life more of a challenge in Nicarauga. Challenges are good, they keep you on your toes.
Maybe the Hondurans can go there for jobs instead of the US?
Calling all Coolies