Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On May 24, 2004, the Chinese Government and the Government of Egypt signed an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), which committed RMB 80 million (approximately $10 million) of grant funding for the One-Stop Investment Service Building Construction Project. Then, on May 9, 2006, the two governments signed letters of exchange, which fully allocated the grant proceeds from the ETCA to the One-Stop Investment Service Building Construction Project (“中国援助埃及苏伊士运河经济区一站式投资服务大楼立项换文”). This project involved the construction of a one-stop investment building in the northwestern part of the Suez Economic Zone. The building is 8 stories tall and 16,808 square meters in size. The total cost of its construction was $19,809,424.58 (RMB 137,000,000). China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) was the contractor responsible for implementation. On June 8, 2006, the Foreign Assistance Project Bid Board of China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) discussed issuing a tender to CSCEC for the One-Stop Investment Service Building Construction Project. Then, on June 19, 2006, during a meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his government would provide a $10 million grant for the One-Stop Investment Service Building Construction Project. During the same month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Egyptian Prime Minister Nazif attended an inauguration ceremony for the project. Then, on February 11, 2007, the Egyptian Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif, and the Chinese Ambassador to Egypt, Wu Sike, laid the foundation for the building at a groundbreaking ceremony. However, construction did not begin until November 20, 2008. The project was originally scheduled for completion on May 20, 2010 and it achieved completion slightly ahead of schedule. Construction was completed on May 15, 2010 and the project passed a final MOFCOM inspection on June 18, 2010. An official project handover ceremony took place on April 27, 2013. Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil and the Egyptian Minister of Planning and Cooperation were in attendance
Staff comments
This project is also known as the Suez Canal Economic Zone One-Stop Investment Service Project and the Single Window Investment Service Building Construction Project. The Chinese project title is 援埃及苏伊士投资服务大楼 or 中国援埃苏伊士运河经济区一站式投资服务大楼 or 援埃及苏伊士湾西北经济区投资服务大楼项目. The Arabic project title is مبنى خدمة المستثمرين ذى النافذة الواحدة or مبنى خدمة المستثمرين or ربمشروع اقامةمبنى المستثمرين بالمنطقة الاقتصادية بشمال غرب خليج السويس. The total cost of this project was somewhere between RMB 137 million and RMB 150 million. However, the Chinese Government only committed RMB 80 million of grant funding for this project in 2006. It is unclear how the remainder of the project cost was financed. This issue merits further investigation.