Safety key at overseas projects

Protecting State-owned assets in emerging economies has become a critical mission for Chinese companies and sometimes it may involve the threat of death or severe injury, said a senior executive.

Echoing the national strategy of “Going Global”, more State-owned enterprises have been seeking growth points and production capacity cooperation opportunities in overseas markets. However, those destinations involve less developed economies while the State-owned assets can be in constant danger, and even the life of the workforce can be at risk.

“Some places where our infrastructure projects are based are fairly unstable,” said Sun Ziyu, vice-president of China Communications Construction Co Ltd.

He said certain places do not accept card payments and all the transactions have to be done by cash, and even some bank staff are in league with gangsters, so these criminals know when and where deliveries of cash will take place.

Once in Kenya, a van loaded with banknotes was attacked by armed gangsters, but the staff in the van refused to hand over the cash, according to the company.

“They were shot in the arms and other body parts before police arrived,” Sun said. “While they could just have handed the cash to the gangsters and reported it as a casual loss, as every company has a budget for such losses, they didn’t, even when facing a choice between life and death.”

“This is the true spirit of Chinese workers in the frontline,” he added.