Chinese Government provides €9.1 million interest-free loan for Parliamentary Complex Construction Project (Linked to #498)

According to a report from the French Institute for Geopolitics (source #136666), the Chinese Government loaned a total of €24,391,842 to the Government of Cote d'Ivoire for the Parliamentary Complex Construction Project (p. 168). This was in the form of two interest-free loans issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. First, in March 2002, the Chinese Government signed a 6 billion FCFA (€9,146,941) interest-free loan agreement for this project (p. 471). Then, on April 24, 2002, Chinese Government and the Government of Cote d'Ivoire signed another interest-free loan agreement (see Umbrella Project #858) in which €15,244,901 were allocated towards this project (see Project #498). The loan terms are unknown. This project involved the construction of a six-story parliamentary complex (“Hotel les Députés”) in the city of Yamoussoukro. Wuhan Architecture Design Institute was the contractor responsible for project design and Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Corporation was the contractor responsible for project implementation. A construction contract was signed on December 5, 2003. Then, on May 7, 2004, a groundbreaking ceremony took place. 300 workers, including 130 Chinese workers, were involved in the construction of the complex. The project passed final MOFCOM inspection on April 18, 2006. It was then officially handed over to the Ivorian authorities on May 27, 2006. On February 27, 2015, Hotel les Députés changed its name to "HP Resort", which stands for Hôtel des Parlementaires.

Additional details

The Chinese project title is 议员之家 or 建的科特迪瓦“议员之家”项目. The French project title is La construction de la maison des députés de Yamoussoukro or la construction de l’Hôtel des députés de Yamoussoukro. This loan-financed project is not included in the database of Chinese loan commitments that SAIS-CARI released in July 2020. None of these sources actually provide the €15,244,901 transaction amount for the April 2002 agreement. AidData just did some math: €24,391,842 minus €9,146,941 is €15,244,901. Since loan terms for the interest-free loan are unavailable, AidData has set maturity period to 20 years by default and grace period to 10 years by default per China's Foreign Assistance White Paper (http://www.cidca.gov.cn/2018-08/06/c_129925064_3.htm) which states that the maturity period of interest-free loans is 20 years, with a drawdown period of 5 years, grace period of 5 years, and repayment over 10 years. AidData treats the drawdown period as providing 5 years of additional grace.

Number of official sources

6

Number of total sources

9