As a footnote to the previous threads on the Daewoo/Madagascar land deal (colonialism?), the president of Madagascar has stepped down and a new transitional leader has emerged until proper elections can be held.
Revolution . . .
Previous post: Perhaps its time for Britain’s man in Pyongyang to detox
Next post: AV Star Sora Aoi Disappoints Fans in China
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Don’t know how I missed this one before. Not sure how it fits into the timeline. FT:
Daewoo unsure of food project in Madagascar
By Christian Oliver in Seoul
Published: December 5 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 5 2008 02:00
Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has not received approval from Madagascar for a plan to farm maize and palm oil in an area half the size of Belgium, contrary to statements by company officials, it has emerged.
Daewoo told the media last month the company would develop 1.3m hectares on the island to secure stable food supplies for South Korea under a 99-year lease…
One Daewoo official told the Financial Times it understood it would not have to pay to lease the land, given the investment involved and the jobs to be created.
But in a statement attributed to the company and posted on the website of the Malagasy president, Daewoo said: “There is not yet a contract on the land between Daewoo Logistics and [the] Madagascar government.”
The Malagasy land reform ministry told the FT: “There has been no contract at regional or central government level.…
…Daewoo declined to confirm or comment on the statement on the government website.
The Korean company said at the time it would be making the best possible use of idle land. The Seoul government defended Daewoo’s plan robustly, calling it a “win-win” deal in which the company would invest $6bn (€4.7bn, £4bn) to cultivate crops, develop infrastructure and create jobs….
The peoples of both Korea and Madagascar really need this type of thing to work. I hope they can be successful!!
From Time Magazine
10 Ideas that are changing the World
#6 Africa, Business Destination
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884769,00.html
#7 Rent-a-Country
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884761,00.html
setnaffa, now is the wrong time to try to conclude this agreement. If an agreement like this is concluded when Madagascar is politically unstable, then people will think that Korea is leveraging Madagascar’s weakness.
It’s imperative to figure out “which” Daewoo this is. The whole time I though it was Daewoo International (the one that bribed the Myanmar Junta to give them oil exploration rights only to have China pay a bigger bribe and have the land taken from them once they found oil and gas.) Financial Times seems to think this is Daewoo Logistics.
If this is the case things change considerably. I’ve met the folks at Daewoo Logistics, and they aren’t a bunch of elitist douche bags if you are wondering. Rather they are a much smaller operation more concerned with their core business including things like offshore rig support, lightering (offloading fuel from large vessels too overlaiden to make it into port and bringing it in on smaller shuttle tankers) and bunkering (vessel refueling), with some standard shipping if I remember correctly.
What is going on is more like new business development. Daewoo logistics may really just want to grow more in shipping, but it is a global downturn, less things are being shipped and they don’t have the contacts with producers and traders like K-Line or Evergreen to get contracts in the first place, so what does one do, how does an underdog compete? Well the traditional Korea business response has been to go one further and expand into the industry that will generate demand for the real market you want to get into. In this case, buy farmland and have the locals farm it, and make sure they give the shipping contract to you.
Now where does one ship it? Well were else would a Korean company have the most contacts through which to buy a shipment but in Korea? They aren’t being neo-colonialists, and its not a matter of idealism, they are just being pragmatic and working with the avenues they have at their disposal. If they knew and trusted another foriegn entity that would pay a good price for the product, they would certainly ship it there just as willingly, and no doubt they will.
Yes, I hope it is Daewoo Logistics, too.
They will make this world a better place with such a deal.
#5
Well that would explain why a company with the word “Logistics” in their name, ostensibly a shipping firm, would want to get into what sounds like offshore-outsourced agriculture.
What do you know, it really is Daewoo Logistics. If you take a look at their website (under “해운”) you will see what I mean. Their products tanker is a Handymax, and their bulk carriers seem to be mostly handy size and panamax. These guys are small fry. But 500,000 tons of palm oil a year?! You can justify three 180,000 DWT suezmax product tankers a year with that (or more likely 7 trips on a panamax, given the difficulty of find a suezmax that can ship palm oil) That is some real growth.
And when you take a look at the bloomberg article: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a1anvJxPYq20&refer=africa you’ll see it’s the Korean government spoksperson who took the neo-colonialist angle, saying how they need to do this for the benefit of the nation, meanwhile four paragraphs above that it mentions how Daewoo Logistics is completely ignoring this by looking at Chinese firms as potential partners, I assume to play a role as long term buyers ala Nonghyup Feed.
#8,
So, apparently, the South Korean government can always manage to find someone in the media willing to put a nationalistic spin on anything.
Did these erroneous reports and the nationalistic spin that went with them contribute to the revolution in Madagascar? I’d love for someone to at least make the allegation and blast some Korean journalists. They’re pretty much bastards as it is already, they need some criticism.
Judging from the Reuters report that:
It sounds as if that deal was a part of the public sentiment shown towards the former president of Madagascar and did have some affect upon what has happened in that country.
I wonder why it did not occur to Daewoo Logistics that they were swimming in tricky PR waters and needed to take extra precautions. I also doubt they are really that benign as well, considering the political influence that occurs in Korean business transactions of a certain magnitude.
You must log in to post a comment.