【英语财经】中资企业拟向哈萨克农业项目投资19亿美元 China plans to invest $1.9bn in Kazakh agriculture

Chinese companies are in talks to invest $1.9bn in 19 agricultural projects across Kazakhstan in an expansion of Beijing’s Silk Road initiative beyond roads and railways to beef and tomato purée.

Gulmira Isayeva, Kazakhstan’s deputy agriculture minister, said Beijing’s $40bn Silk Road Fund was planning investments in three projects, including one to move three tomato processing plants from China to the Central Asian country.

“We have great interest from Chinese companies to invest in our Kazakh agricultural production system,” she told the Financial Times in an interview. “We can export to China all products which we can grow in Kazakhstan.”

Kazakhstan is the world’s eighth-largest wheat exporter but its agriculture industry, established largely in Soviet times under Nikita Khrushchev’s virgin lands programme, is inefficient and under-developed. The Kazakh government hopes agriculture can help the oil-dependent economy diversify as it experiences its weakest growth in two decades.

Chinese investment in agriculture is a politically sensitive topic in Kazakhstan, where in 2010 a proposal for China to lease a large area of land was dropped after rare public protests.

In recent weeks, the country has witnessed a new series of protests over the mistaken belief that a new law would allow foreigners to buy Kazakh land, which led to the resignation of the agriculture minister and economy minister last week. Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president, last week bowed to the protesters by delaying the implementation of the new law.

Ms Isayeva, who was speaking before the most recent protests, stressed that Chinese companies would not be allowed to own Kazakh land.

Moreover, she said that Chinese investors were in general not seeking to rent large swaths of agricultural land. Instead, she said, they were looking to invest in processing facilities in partnership with Kazakh companies.

For example, chicken processing facilities can increase the efficiency of Kazakhstan’s poultry industry, she said. “In Kazakhstan we have no tradition to eat legs and heads of birds; in China it’s a delicacy.”

The former Soviet countries of Central Asia are looking increasingly to investments from China to spur growth as the fall in commodity prices and recession in Russia weigh on their economies.

“China is a growing giant; we welcome its development,” Erlan Idrissov, Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, said in a separate interview. “There is nothing bad in the growing presence of China in our part of the world. The prudent policy will be to find every opportunity to jump on board.”

Investments under consideration in Kazakhstan’s agriculture sector include $1.2bn by Zhongfu Investment Group into oilseed processing; $200m into beef, lamb and horsemeat production by Rifa Investment; and $80m into the production of tomatoes and tomato paste by Cofco, China’s state agriculture conglomerate, according to a list of prospective investments Ms Isayeva showed the FT and statements from the project partners.

中国企业正在谈判对哈萨克斯坦各地19个农业项目投资19亿美元，这标志着北京方面的丝绸之路倡议将从公路和铁路扩大到牛肉和番茄酱。

哈萨克斯坦农业部副部长古尔米拉?伊萨耶娃(Gulmira Isayeva)表示，北京方面的400亿美元丝路基金正计划在三个项目投资，其中一个项目将把中国的三家番茄加工厂迁至这个中亚国家。

“中国企业对投资于我们哈萨克农业生产体系表现出极大兴趣，”她在接受采访时对英国《金融时报》表示。“我们可以把哈萨克斯坦种植的所有农产品出口到中国。”

哈萨克斯坦是世界第八大小麦出口国，但其农业产业基本上是在苏联时期按照尼基塔?赫鲁晓夫(Nikita Khrushchev)的处女地开垦计划建立起来的，效率低下，欠发达。哈萨克斯坦政府希望农业能够帮助该国依赖石油的经济实现多元化，目前该国正经历20年来最疲弱的增长。

中国对农业投资在哈萨克斯坦是一个政治敏感话题，2010年，一项让中国租用大片土地的提议在遭遇罕见的公众抗议后被放弃了。

最近几周，该国出现了一系列新的抗议，原因是抗议者误以为一部新法律将允许外国人购买哈萨克斯坦土地。但这些抗议活动仍迫使农业部长和经济部长上周辞职。迫于抗议压力，哈萨克斯坦总统努尔苏丹?纳扎尔巴耶夫(Nursultan Nazarbayev)上周推迟实施新法律。

农业部副部长伊萨耶娃是在最近的抗议爆发之前发表讲话的；她强调，中国企业将不被允许拥有哈萨克斯坦土地。

此外，她表示，中国投资者一般不寻求租用大片农田，而是寻求与哈萨克斯坦企业合作投资于加工设施。

她表示，举例来说，肉鸡加工设施可提高哈萨克斯坦家禽业的效率。“在哈萨克斯坦，我们没有吃家禽爪子和头的传统；而这些在中国是美味佳肴。”

中亚的前苏联国家正日益指望从中国获得投资以推动增长。大宗商品价格下跌和俄罗斯深陷衰退拖累了这些国家的经济。

“中国是一个不断增长的巨人；我们欢迎它来开发，”哈萨克斯坦外交部长叶尔兰?伊德里索夫(Erlan Idrissov)在另一个采访中表示。“中国在我们所处的地区加大存在没有什么不好。审慎的政策是抓住每一个机遇给予配合。”

根据伊萨耶娃向英国《金融时报》展示的潜在投资项目清单以及项目合作伙伴的声明，对哈萨克斯坦农业部门的拟议投资项目包括：中富投资集团(Zhongfu Investment Group)对油籽加工项目投资12亿美元；日发(Rifa)对牛肉、羊肉和马肉生产项目投资2亿美元；以及中国国有农业企业集团——中粮集团(Cofco)对番茄和番茄酱生产项目投资8000万美元。

译者/和风