Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On November 19, 2015, the Chinese Economic and Commercial Counsellor Office signed an agreement with the Government of Ecuador to provide equipment for the ECU 911 surveillance system in the "Provision of Equipment for Strengthening the Integrated Security Service ECU-911 in the Litoral and Rural Areas." This agreement was preceded by a feasibility study, committed on August 14 and 24, 2015 (see #69469). On July 27, 2016, the governments of China and Ecuador signed Letters of Exchange, which specified that the equipment to be granted would be worth 97 million RMB (reported as about 15.4 million USD in the 2017 Annual Management Report). It also specified that the grant would be funded through several Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreements (ETCA), which were signed on October 29, 2008; February 13, 2009; December 27, 2010; September 28, 2012; and October 25, 2013 (see #88166, #35851, #35943, #64954, and #88180, respectively). The breakdown in funds is unknown. The equipment, manufactured by Huawei and C.E.I.E.C, was delivered in 2017 and included about 450 cameras, 1,640 video surveillance and storage systems, and 14 servers. The agreement also called for China to provide technical training to Ecuadorian technicians managing the emergency response system. The surveillance system currently has 16 regional response centers across the country, as well as a surveillance network with about 4,300 cameras across 24 provinces. According to Ecuador's National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC), as of January 2018, the crime rate has dropped by 11.8 percent since implementing ECU 911. The project is also referred to as “Equipment provision for strengthening the Integrated Service” (Dotación de equipamiento para el fortalecimiento del Servicio Integrado de Seguridad ECU 911), "Ecuador 911 Safety Emergency Response Command Center Project or National Public Safety Command and Control System Project", and ECU 911 Security Project.
Staff comments
The Letters of Exchange for the feasibility study specified that if the project was found to be feasible, an agreement would be signed. It seems likely the agreement referenced is the one signed November 19, 2015, and that the Letters of Exchange from July 2016 were signed later as part of the same agreement. These are assumed to be related to the same project due to the similarities between the language to describe the project between the Letters of Exchange and the ECU-911 2017 Annual Management Report, as well as the similarity in cost when the exchange rate is accounted for.