Gabon has urged China to accelerate the development of an iron-ore project at Belinga, some 500km east of Libreville, the capital of the Central African country.
The project has been delayed by the global financial crisis, .
“We need to finalize this project because we expect the creation of 20,000 jobs for the country,” Mining and Oil Minister Casimir Oye Mba said in remarks broadcast on state-owned Radio Television Gabonaise yesterday.
China’s Ambassador to Gabon, Xue Wei Jin, held talks last week with Georgette Koko, Gabon’s deputy prime minister in charge of the environment, to review the progress of an environmental study before work starts on the site.
China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corp. announced in July that it had signed a 25-year accord with Gabon’s government to build and operate the mine producing as much as 30 million metric tons a year of iron ore. The state-owned contracting company, known as Sinomach, will also build a 500-kilometre railway, a port and a water power station.
The total cost of the mine will exceed $790 million, according to China Daily.
Source: Bloomberg
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