A team from China’s Ministry of Commerce to arrive in Tripoli on Saturday for a four-day visit to assess restarting work . . .[restrict]on a number of projects undertaken by Chinese companies that stopped during last year’s revolution. In particular, the team will be looking at completing thousands of apartments. It is reported that some 100,000 apartments across the country being built by Chinese firms remain unfinished.
The team, which will visit Tripoli and Benghazi, also plans to check on damage to Chinese companies’ assets during the revolution. It also hopes to discuss the future of other projects which Chinese companies had been awarded and started before the revolution, in particular telecommunications and the planned railways. The value of Chinese contracts in Libya prior to the 17 February revolution was at least $7 billion. The three railway projects undertaken by China Railway Construction Corporation alone were worth over $4 billion.
In the first weeks of the revolution, several thousand Chinese workers were evacuated home.
The NTC had originally said that all foreign contracts signed by the Qaddafi regime would be honoured but has since announced that they would be re-investigated to see if there had been any corruption involved. It has also said that new contracts would not go to companies from countries that had not supported the revolution.
China is widely perceived to fit into that grouping. [/restrict]
