Chinese Government provides grant for Poilão Post-Harvest Center Construction Project

In 2015, China’s Ministry of Commerce provided a grant to the Government of Cape Verde for the Poilão Post-Harvest Center Construction Project. The monetary value of this grant is unknown. This project involved the construction of a post-harvest center (or agricultural products processing center) — with a fruit cleaning and packaging workshop, cold storage warehouse, processing machinery, and power generation equipment — near the Poilão Dam in the São Lourenço dos Órgãos municipality on the Island of Santiago. The center provides cleaning, selection, calibration, packaging classification, refrigeration conservation services, as well as technical assistance and information. Jiangsu Construction Group Co., Ltd. — a Chinese state-owned company — is the contractor responsible for implementation. It signed a construction contract with Cape Verde’s Minister of Foreign Affairs on August 5, 2015. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on August 9, 2015 and the estimated construction period was 16 months. Construction began on October 20, 2015 and ended on July 27, 2016. The Chinese Ambassador to Cape Verde and Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs signed the project handover certificate on September 15, 2016. The processing center was officially launched on March 15, 2017.

Additional details

The project title is Agricultural Products Processing Center Construction Project. The Portuguese project title is Centro de Pós-Colheita no Poilão or Centro de pós colheita de Órgãos or Centro de Processamento dos Produtos Agrícolas nas imediações da Barragem de Poilão, na ilha de Santiago or Centro de pós-colheita do Serrado. The Chinese project title is 中国援佛农产品加工中心 or 援佛得角农产品加工中心项目 or 佛得角农产品加工中心项目. AidData could not identify any evidence from the Chinese Government or the Government of Cape Verde that this project was supported by a loan. Therefore, it is coded as a grant-financed project for the time being. However, MOFCOM refers to the project as being supported by ‘aid’, which in principle could be a grant or interest-free loan. This issue merits further investigation.

Number of official sources

8

Number of total sources

16