Daewoo Logistics — its corporate executives no doubt sitting on the porch of some bungalow in Antananarivo sipping gin-and-tonics and bitching about how the natives can’t fix a proper cup of tea — said the Financial Times got its report on the company’s recent deal for Madagascar’s farm land all wrong.
Or so reports the Maeil Gyeongje, from whom it claims the FT got its story in the first place.
Daewoo Logistics said to acquire the land, the company will invest some US$6 billion into the country over the next 20 years. Considering the country only got US$900 million from the IMF, it’s a considerable amount of money.
A Daewoo Logistics official said the US$6 billion would, in and of itself, contribute greatly to Madagascar’s economic development. He said the company wasn’t just pursuing profits, but also making multifaceted efforts to help develop the country, including transferring agricultural technology and helping regional development,
An industry official also said since cooperation on road and power station construction had been ongoing, parts of the FT report were wrong.
Moreover, many were saying that descriptions of the project as “food colonization” revealed ignorance of the local situation in Madagascar.
The country has about 20 million people and 8 million heads of cattle, so there is no problem with food supply.
With its food needs sufficiently taken care for, Madagascar has promoted foreign investment on the land left over. A Daewoo official said it was Madagascar that actively pushed for the contract. He said the company is thinking of inserting an article by which the company would not export food overseas if the local food situation turns bad.
Clearly, they haven’t been consulting with the British on this project.
The government has been holding off officially responding to the FT’s boldfaced lies, but it does believe this part:
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation warned this year that the race by some countries to secure farmland overseas risked creating a “neo-colonial” system. Those fears could be increased by the fact that Daewoo’s farm in Madagascar represents about half the African country’s arable land, according to estimates by the US government.
is a malicious distortion.
In another report, the Maeil Gyeongje said experts believe the FT report, with its provocative talk of “neo-colonialism” and “pirates,” was intended as a warning against an increased Asian presence in Africa, long considered Europe’s backyard. The piece did include a quote from a Daewoo Logistics official, however, who said Madagascar was quite sensitive about this issue because when China invests, it only goes after its own profits.
Read: We’re the nice Asians!
Why Pick on the Yellow Guy?
The JoongAng Ilbo, meanwhile, released an editorial blasting the FT, asking why the paper was turning a blind eye to British Jatropha farms in Madagascar (used for biodiesel fuel) and French plantations on the island while going after a Korean company only. And besides, the land Daewoo is acquiring is undeveloped, the new farms will provide employment, and the Madagascar government will be taking a 30% cut of the farm profits in taxes.
Not that I disagree with the editorial, but it did strike me that I probably could have read a very similar editorial in a Japanese newspaper in 1910.
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Well, I would encourage scrutiny of Daewoo, especially since they have done evil at the behest of the last administration, which has deliberately lost (covered up) many records that detail just what it did do.
Is it a wonder that no other Korean papers have really taken too much of a closer look at just what Korean companies are really doing elsewhere in the world and what the consequences of their actions are? For example, Posco and Vendanta (a British mining company) are attempting to mine and process bauxite in the Orissa area of India in what is the largest direct foreign investment in India (the Posco project). Though this project could create jobs in a “poor” part of India, many local people view these project with alarm since one project is so close to a local sacred mountain (British/Vendanta project), not to mention angry farmers that would lose their land to Posco’s new plant, which “could displace up to 20,000 people”, thus the local government would like to protect their farmers and promote agriculture in the region as well. (One BBC article is here.)
Mind you, I am not accusing POSCO of doing anything illegal at all, but most Korean papers are very reluctant (?) to really dig and take a look at the background issues that involve Korean interests in the world.
Moreover, many were saying that descriptions of the project as “food colonization” revealed ignorance of the local situation in Madagascar.
The country has about 20 million people and 8 million heads of cattle, so there is no problem with food supply.
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Surely the country’s ability to feed itself has nothing to do with whether or not it really is “food colonialism.” I assumed the term meant taking something and giving nothing (or very little) back.
Daewoo might argue that it has to invest under the terms of the lease, but that is investment, and isn’t the same as paying for something. It’s hard to see that Daewoo will not benefit from these investments in the long run.
That said, they have a point about singling out Korean companies when other places do the same, and perhaps in a less positive way.
On the other Daewoo Logistics thread I felt that some of you were selling Madagascar too short. It’s not like they are a bunch of helpless uncivilized natives wide eyed with awe upon seeing a flaming lighter for the first time. And it’s not like Korea is the first foreign country Madagascar has done business with before. Further more since they have also experienced colonialism in their history they are probably not naive enough to let themselves fall into a neo-colonialism trap. The fact that Madagascar is leasing out such a massive amount of land probably means they are confident they have something to gain. However being a Korean I am not blind to the possibility that Daewoo Logistics might take advantage of its less economically developed partner, because Korea has far too many wheeler-dealers (including some politicians and conglomerates) than I would like to admit. But I do not think it is to much to ask that you reserve your criticism for a little while to see what the outcome will be like. If it ends up resembling Japanese colonialism in any way than you may fire at will and thoroughly berate Daewoo Logistics (and the Korean government: I assume a deal of this magnitude definitely has government ties). I will be surely be joining you if it does.
But if there’s any business in the world that can turn capital into nothing, it’s Daewoo.
The bit about why pick on Daewoo and not the British and French deals seems a fair comment. The only reason I’ve heard of the Jatropho deal is because of reading about the nefarious neo-colonial Koreans!
Not that I disagree with the editorial, but it did strike me that I probably could have read a very similar editorial in a Japanese newspaper in 1910.
I don’t recall reading anywhere about a fleet of Korean warships being sent to Madagascar to engage in gun-point diplomacy, do you?
The Western press has been playing the neo-colonialism card ever since China started investing in Africa. Poking their noses unasked for in other people’s businesses and dispensing unsolicited opinion is what Westerners tend to do best.
There is nothing colonial or neo-colonial about this. Nations like Madagascar, which most Americans can’t even locate on a map, has long been neglected from participating in the global economy. This is globalization not neo-colonialism. It is no different, in principle, from Hyundai leasing land and building factories in a foreign country.
So THAT’S what this was really about!
Netizen Kim,
What does Americans’ geographical ignorance have to do with this?
Exactly how has Madagascar been “neglected” from participating in the global economy?
What makes it look very much like a colonialist move is the sheer scale of it. Do you really think that a country would agree to such a vast takeover of its lands by a foreign power if it weren’t very desperate for development on almost any terms thrown to it?
How would it be if Korea gave up such a vast chunk of its total land to, say, Saudi Arabia or the US for ag development? Please don’t tell me the country wouldn’t scream neo-colonialism.
Korea screams neo-colonialism (or whispers it in the rotten, corrupt halls of power) when 1 COMPANY makes a huge profit on a deal that hugely benefitted Korea! As in Lone Star.
The hypocrisy is, yet again, both glaring and gargantuan.
As for your comment that no gunboat diplomacy has been seen, we all know that modern colonialism needs no gunboats to achieve its goals, wherever it raises its head.
Korea continues to benefit hugely from really grotesque double standards. It’s very smart of Korea to do this, don’t get me wrong. But let’s call it what it is.
Countries that are in any position of power or well-being in the int’l economic scheme of things just don’t make deals like this. It is done only through corruption, desperation, or both.
Guys, if you’re all for calling a spade a spade, at least acknowledge that the FT article was not exactly an exercise in journalistic rigor. Go read it again, and see if you can find ANY details or supporting evidence to its claim that the deal looks “rapacious.” I’m just as contrarian as the next guy, and I certainly have no qualms about being critical of Korea, but I do think it’s only fair to reserve the same kind of skepticism for both sides of the story. Seriously, the FT article reads like something Hankyoreh would write on a bad day (or the KCNA on a really good day).
Let’s just stop for a moment and imagine that the roles were reversed and a foreign conglomerate were making the same kind of massive investment in Korea taking over half of the arable land to ship food abroad. How would Koreans react to this? Let’s imagine the Nong-hyup farmers in Cheolla-Do. Think for a moment about just leting in some foreign beef. Then imagine agri-business on a massive scale on Korean soil for the benefit of a foreign power. Just how would Koreans react? If the answer is that Koreans would go balistic, then Korea has no right doing unto others that which it would not want done unto itself.
I’m curious as to why the people of Madagascar hasn’t gone ballistic over the deal.
@adeptitus: The ones who know about it are the ones profiting from the deal.
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