China funds and builds Maseru Agriculture Storage and Logistics Center in Lesotho

On 22 January 2018, a team of six Chinese engineers arrived in Lesotho to carry out preliminary research on an agricultural products storage, logistics, and trading center project (农产品仓储物流交易中心项目 or Maseru Agriculture Storage and Logistics Infrastructure project). The trip must have showed potential because between 3 and 4 September 2018 at the Beijing Summit for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Lesotho's president and China's premier signed several agreements; one of which being feasibility study for the agricultural storage center. In September 2019, the Chinese Ambassador told Basotho reporters that during a coordinators’ meeting (unknown date) for following up on the 2018 Beijing Summit, Lesotho and China government officials signed an exchange of letters marking formal commitment to this project. The Chinese government is most likely building and funding this entire project for free, but this claim lacks solid evidence. The value of this project is unknown. As of December 2019, this project was not complete. The purpose of this project is to help Lesotho alleviate food insecurity issues and decrease the amount of times China must donate food.

Number of official sources

6

Number of total sources

6