, Columnist
China's Nigerian Misadventures
This article is for subscribers only.
Just when the world thought China was retreating -- pushing acquisitive private companies to relinquish their global shopping sprees -- it looks like Beijing might be getting out its check book again.
China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. will build a $5.8 billion hydroelectric power station in eastern Nigeria, with 85 percent of the funding to come from Beijing's Export-Import Bank, Nigeria's power minister told reporters in the capital Abuja on Wednesday. The Mambilla project, first mooted in the early 1980s, has long been dreamed about as Nigeria's answer to the Three Gorges Dam in China. Its generation capacity of 3,050 megawatts would more than double the country's current hydro potential.