Comments on: Egyptian company invests in DPRK cement

By: Wedge

Wedge — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:31:50 +0000

Obviously, WSJ’s use of the imperialistic “Sea of Japan” is the more important issue here. Get with the program, people!

[Heads off in a huff to protest mild-mannered Evan Ramstad.]

Back to reality, I’ve got W100K says the Egyptians lose their shorts by 2017. They’ve already got enough bunkers by now, right? And no more pyramid hotels that I know of.

By: hoju_saram

hoju_saram — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:19:27 +0000

I’d be putting my money on sucker. The DPRK still has huge outstanding debts to foriegn companies/nations they screwed - 12 bilion at last estimate - why should this one be any different?

By: lirelou

lirelou — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:41:54 +0000

Saw this on Brendon’s site and agree that this is one of those genius/sucker gambles. Consider that even if the North collapsed, there would be a massive need for concrete in the construction projects related to relief. Culverts, bridge abuttments, tunnels, port improvement, road building, railway upgrades, etc. The possibilities make one wonder if Orascom is betting on the regime’s survival, or it’s collapse.

By: captbbq

captbbq — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:03:03 +0000

http://news.naver.com/news/rea.....o_id=13707

Naver is carrying a three sentence summary of this, and one of those (not to mention all of the netzens below) is devoted to the name “Sea of Japan” being used on the map of the WSJ.

By: Brendon Carr

Brendon Carr — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:36:03 +0000

I also touched on this last night on my Korea Law Blog. It’s a really interesting play by Orascom looking toward infrastructure investment in North Korea (wonder where the money for that investment will come?) now that the nuclear issue is “taken care of”. We’ll see about that.

Sangwon Cement was finished in 1989 with the last of the foreign investment and bank-loan money from the mid-1980s, before North Korea defaulted on everything. Orascom is either going to come out looking like geniuses, or suckers. And that will depend in large part upon whether recent reports of North Korean opening are really going to come to pass, or whether they will be another will-o’-the-wisp bamboozling the world into believing in change.