what should they do if they took away more than US$1 billion in assets?中国海军赴非洲撤侨1300多人，人走了10多亿美元资产怎么办？
The Chinese Navy went to Africa to evacuate more than 1,300 overseas Chinese, and what should they do if they took away more than US$1 billion in assets?
Recently, the domestic situation in Sudan has deteriorated. The Chinese naval guided missile destroyer Nanning and comprehensive supply ship Weishanhu rushed to Sudan to carry out the task of evacuating our personnel in Sudan.
So far, with the joint efforts of various parties, all Chinese citizens and foreign family members who arrived at the assembly point on the 24th have been successfully evacuated, and more than 1,300 Chinese citizens have been safely transferred.
There were many touching moments in this clean and swift evacuation operation. Whether it was the young lady in the navy holding the child, the eldest sister crying with joy at the pier, or the bus with the national flag attached to escort the compatriots, this time, everyone once again felt sincerely for the motherland proud.
In any case, as long as people are safe, everything is fine. However, our people are gone, but what about the assets left by Chinese companies in Sudan?
What will happen after the evacuation?
Take the evacuation of overseas Chinese from Libya twelve years ago as an example.
In January 2011, the Libyan civil war broke out, and the situation quickly spread across the country. Chinese factories in Libya were attacked by mobs, and all Chinese-funded enterprises were forced to stop production.
At that time, there were about 30,000 Chinese workers in Libya, and most of them were scattered in various places in Libya. After China launched a first-level response and decided to evacuate all overseas Chinese, four Il-76s of the Air Force and the Xuzhou ship of the seventh escort formation of the Navy arrived. Evacuation of citizens from Libya.
With unremitting efforts, all 35,860 Chinese citizens in Liberia were successfully evacuated, and 2,100 foreigners were also evacuated along the way.
This evacuation operation fully demonstrated our country's military, economic, and diplomatic strength, and created the highest record in the history of the world. The people did come back safely, but what Chinese companies were most worried about happened.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, China has a total of 50 large-scale projects under construction in Libya, involving 75 companies, with a total contract value of US$18.8 billion.
In addition to these investment projects with the government, Chinese citizens have also invested more than 3 billion U.S. dollars in Libya. After the civil war broke out, all these projects have been suspended, and after the evacuation of overseas Chinese, Chinese-funded enterprises have to stagnate or even give up.
The most direct loss in China is fixed assets. Unlike the asset-light model of Western countries that provide local services, most Chinese companies are engaged in project contracting in Liberia, and they have a large number of construction machinery, site facilities and office buildings. Typical asset-heavy model.
When fighting, shells don't have eyes, and some people with ulterior motives sabotage. After the Chinese withdraw, there will inevitably be a lot of fixed asset losses, but these visible losses are nothing compared to the latter. Big witch.
According to the statistics of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the investment of Chinese enterprises in Libya is mainly concentrated in the field of infrastructure construction, and the characteristic of losses in this field is "the more you do, the greater the loss." Why do you say that?
Because according to the usual practice, the payment method of project contract funds is mainly based on the progress of the project plus 15% advance payment. A certain proportion is paid in advance for the construction materials of the contractor, which is mainly used to purchase the materials and equipment required for the project.The main problem here is that although the enterprise can obtain part of the advance payment, the advance payment is generally deducted from the progress payment of the project every month according to the progress of the project, and there is still a 2-3 month review period for Party A to pay the progress payment. As a result, when the company can get the money it deserves, it will take 3 months or even half a year.
▲ China First Metallurgical Misrata Cement Plant Project in Libya
According to the usual practice, the construction projects implemented in Libya are all funded by Chinese enterprises first. In this way, once the construction is stopped due to uncontrollable factors, the higher the degree of completion of the project under construction, the greater the loss of the construction contractor. On the contrary, if the construction progress If the payment ratio is less than the advance payment, the account may be settled.
It is understood that most of the contracts of Chinese companies in Libya have already started construction. For example, the three Chinese companies with the fastest construction progress in Libya at that time - Hongfu Engineering, Beijing Construction Engineering and China State Construction suffered a lot of losses.
Take Hongfu Engineering as an example. When it left Libya, it completed 36% of the total project. The Libyan side has paid 15% of the advance payment and 15% of the progress payment. The total amount is about 1 billion yuan, and 660 million yuan of accounts receivable has not been recovered. .
At that time, China State Construction was mainly constructing the national housing project of the Libyan government. There were about 20,000 units, and the construction period was 40 months.
▲ China First Metallurgical Corporation Libya 5000 suites construction project department
This part of the loss is caused by irresistible force, and there are even more disgusting human factors below.
On March 25, 2011, not long after the Chinese people withdrew, the Libyan Sahara Bank had already claimed against China Gezhouba Group, China Water Conservancy and Hydropower Construction Group, Hongfu Engineering and other companies for the advance payment guarantee letter, demanding that it must be paid within five days. The bank replied.
The advance payment guarantee is a letter of guarantee issued by the contractor to the owner through the bank to repay the owner's advance payment according to regulations. According to regulations, only when the Chinese contractor fails to perform the contract and is unwilling to return the advance payment paid by the owner, the bank will return the advance payment to the owner and claim the principal and interest of the advance payment from the contractor.
But the problem is that at that time the prepayment guarantee will not expire in half a year, this phenomenon of the bank claiming in advance is purely malicious claiming, it is simply a wicked person suing first!
Libyan Sahara Bank claimed about 400 million yuan from Hongfu Industrial Co., Ltd., and even more from China Gezhouba Group. However, Sahara Bank’s claim was rogue: either the Chinese company should compensate the principal and interest of the advance payment, or the deadline for the advance payment guarantee should be extended to December 31, 2012.
For the Chinese side, this is purely a slap in the face and a slap in the face. If they choose to compensate, the loss will be even greater. If the letter of guarantee is extended, it will increase the risk and the cost of the letter of guarantee for another year. Moreover, even if the bank stops claiming, the credit rating of Chinese companies will also be affected. to be downregulated.
Such a toss is tantamount to saying that the project funds pre-paid by the Li side are likely to be returned by them, and they may even intensify the situation. Are you disgusting?
Moreover, when building infrastructure in Libya at that time, due to the lack of local building materials, most of the building materials needed by Chinese companies to carry out projects were purchased from China. After the project was interrupted, many companies could not pay the raw material suppliers on schedule. It is a subcontracting model, which subsequently led to a series of triangular debt problems.
There are also more than 30,000 withdrawn personnel resettlement, labor costs and the resulting compensation issues, which are also major problems faced by Chinese companies.
For example, Century Huafeng, which was on the news broadcast for actively assisting the evacuation of overseas Chinese and was commended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was originally one of the top 500 private enterprises in China and one of the top 100 enterprises with comprehensive strength in China's construction industry.
As early as 2007, Century Huafeng entered the Libyan real estate market and signed an EPC contract agreement with the Libyan government in that year to develop and construct 5,000 residential houses and infrastructure covering an area of 6,000 mu, with a contract cost of 3.354 billion yuan.
At that time, Huafeng Construction, the core enterprise under Century Huafeng, hired Minzu Securities as a counseling agency, and was entering the listing counseling period, and clearly hoped to "strive for a successful listing by the end of 2011."
However, affected by the situation in Libya in 2011, Century Huafeng had to withdraw all employees in the Libyan project. Originally, many main projects were about to be completed soon. However, due to the rapid changes in the situation, people had to withdraw, and a lot of engineering equipment and raw materials It was too late to take it, and the result was heavy losses.
Because the investment in Libya could not be recovered, Century Huafeng was listed as a "risk warning" by the domestic banking system, and almost all the banks' loan windows for it were closed.
In addition, the company's own stalls were too large and there were loopholes in management, which led to its operation being in trouble for a while. In 2011, if the loan was not suspended, it could have been slowed down. As a result, the capital chain was broken after such a toss.
Like its subsidiary Huafeng Real Estate, the projects under construction were either suspended or postponed. Many projects suffered losses, and later they could only face bankruptcy and reorganization, and eventually became the "front waves" who died on the beach.
How to protect China's overseas assets
Similar to Libya, the main areas of Chinese investment in Sudan are oil development and infrastructure construction.
Since 1995, China has been carrying out investment and trade cooperation in oil, natural gas and other infrastructure in Sudan. The integrated oil industry system that China helped Sudan build once enabled Sudan to achieve oil self-sufficiency and surplus exports. Chinese investment Accounted for 75% of Sudan's foreign oil investment.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, before South Sudan’s independence in 2011, China had invested more than US$20 billion in Sudan in projects in the fields of oil, natural gas, electricity, and transportation.
After the independence of South Sudan in 2011, the shutdown and delay caused by frequent wars will increase the cost of the project. Therefore, China’s direct investment in Sudan, especially oil projects with large investment, has been decreasing day by day. The number of citizens has also dropped from a maximum of more than 30,000 to more than 1,500 this year.
However, from the perspective of investment stock, at the end of 2020, China’s direct investment stock in Sudan was US$1.12 billion. Although it was much lower than the US$1.52 billion in 2011, overall, the scale of China’s investment in Sudan is still Relatively large.
Moreover, in recent years, the cooperation between China and Sudan in the fields of petroleum, infrastructure, agriculture and mining has continued, such as the slaughterhouse project aided by China, mineral resource exploration and development projects, and locomotive order contracts.
With the evacuation of overseas Chinese from Sudan this time, Chinese companies will inevitably face huge losses. So is there any way to recover the losses and relieve rights?
The answer is yes.
As far as the current situation is concerned, there are two main ways to protect overseas Chinese companies, one is through international trade protection measures, and the other is through the signing of bilateral investment protection treaties by the state.
We know that international trade is based on contracts, whether it is goods transactions or labor exports. Generally, if there is a problem, compensation can be claimed according to the contract law. However, exceptions to force majeure or changes in circumstances generally exist in the contract laws of various countries.
Unforeseen, irresistible, and unavoidable external forces such as war are force majeure, that is to say, a major change in the situation has completely exceeded the objective conditions for performing the contract.
In this way, under such exceptional circumstances, the Chinese enterprise can at best not continue to perform the contract, but has no way to claim compensation for losses from the other party.
Although buying insurance can also hedge against war risks, for example, after the evacuation of overseas Chinese in Libya, China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation paid 162 million yuan and 48.15 million yuan in compensation to China Gezhouba Group and China National Building Materials Group respectively.
But this insurance company is also a Chinese state-owned company, which means that money is transferred from the left hand to the right hand. The loss is just passed on, and it has not disappeared. However, Chinese companies generally look for Chinese insurance companies, so this approach is not very easy.
What's more, China's projects in Sudan are basically infrastructure projects. No matter who is in power, these projects have to be carried out. Therefore, Chinese-funded enterprises often choose to continue to perform the contract instead of demanding compensation based on the contract.
Since Chinese companies invest and contract overseas projects, most of them are in the form of joint ventures, and there are relatively few wholly-owned projects. Therefore, the way to resolve disputes is often coordination, mediation and compliance with international agreements.
At this time, the bilateral investment protection treaty signed by the country needs to come forward. The parties to such a treaty generally promise to each other to ensure that they own the company of the other country, and can obtain a series of rights such as most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment, as well as a clear dispute settlement mechanism. .
Only under the bilateral mechanism, when a risk occurs, can the host country be required to compensate for the loss, and after the overseas investment insurance company has paid compensation to the insured company, it can replace the company to claim compensation from the host country. The bilateral "subrogation" system has been played well.
Therefore, this bilateral agreement is the most important legal weapon for resolving overseas disputes of Chinese enterprises at this stage. For example, when China, Tunisia and Egypt settled overseas investment disputes, they used bilateral agreements to a large extent to protect the local rights of Chinese enterprises. interests, and since there is no bilateral investment agreement with Libya, the losses of Chinese enterprises can only be resolved based on the principle of diplomatic protection.
Fortunately, China signed the "Agreement on Encouraging and Mutual Protection of Investment" with Sudan in 2010, which has made detailed regulations on how to protect the investment of Chinese companies, so as long as the Sudanese government recognizes it later, Chinese companies can claim compensation.
Of course, the above are all soft means, and there are actually some relatively hard means between evacuation of overseas Chinese and armed intervention.
For example, China dispatches unarmed security consultants or private security companies to provide protection for local Chinese citizens and enterprises. This is also a relatively common protection mode for China overseas.
China can also establish cooperation with the local government or the armed forces in the controlled area. Through intelligence sharing, personnel training, and weapon and equipment assistance, it can ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and enterprises and maintain the safety of overseas countries without direct armed intervention. Benefit.
评论
发表评论