China Meheco Corporation provides supplier’s credit to Municipality of Rio de Janeiro for Medical Equipment Acquisition Project

In 2020, China Meheco Corporation — a Chinese state-owned enterprise — issued a supplier’s credit to Municipality of Rio de Janeiro for a Medical Equipment Acquisition Project. The proceeds of the loan were to be used by the borrower to partially finance a commercial contract between China Meheco Corporation and Municipality of Rio de Janeiro worth approximately $73,890,665 (BRL 370,000,000). The loan carried a 5-year maturity and an unknown interest rate. The borrower also purchased a credit insurance policy from Sinosure. The purpose of the project was to purchase 18,000 pieces of medical equipment, including x-ray machines and CT scanners. The first batch of CT scanners from China Meheco Corporation (中国医药保健品有限公司 or 中国医药公司) arrived on March 12, 2020. The 6th and last shipment of medical equipment arrived on July 1, 2020. A government audit later revealed that a substantial amount of the purchased equipment was never used.

Additional details

1. This project is also known as the Renovation of Medical Equipment of the Technological Park of the Municipal Health Secretariat of the City of Rio de Janeiro Project. The Chinese project title is 出口巴西里约市医疗设备项目 or 6台CT机 or 公立医疗系统设备更新项目. The Portuguese project title is renovação do parque tecnológico das unidades de saúde. 2. Established in the year 1984, China Meheco Co., Ltd., which is also known as China Meheco Corporation, is a state-owned enterprise listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and its controlling shareholder is China General Technology (Group) Holding Co., Ltd. 3. This was ‘Sinosure’s first medium and long-term export credit insurance project underwritten based on the creditworthiness of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro.’ 4. The precise monetary value of the supplier’s credit is unknown. For the time being, AidData assumed that it is worth 85% $62,807,065.25) of the total cost of the $73,890,665 (BRL 370,000,000) commercial contract between the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro and China Meheco Corporation. 5. Sinosure provided insurance cover worth $50.73 million.

Number of official sources

4

Number of total sources

15