Economy - Global Witness: Revelations in the Economist – The Queensway syndicate and the Africa trade

Date: 12th August 2011

Source: Global Witness 

Revelations in today’s Economist expose how a syndicate of private companies based in Hong Kong has been able to secure access to vast tracts of Africa’s current and future natural resource wealth in deals struck behind closed doors with pariah regimes.

The story reveals how a private group of investors from Hong Kong have struck some of the largest “resource-for-infrastructure” (RFI) deals ever made with the governments of Angola, Zimbabwe and the former government of Guinea, denying millions of citizens access to their natural resource wealth and dealing with brutal regimes in the process.

The syndicate secures access to resources by offering much needed investment in developing countries’ economies and infrastructure. However, very few of the promised benefits are materialising in the countries concerned, while the tiny elite behind the syndicate are making billions in profits.  read more...