Chinese Firms Finalize Investments in Ecuadorian and Kazakhstan Copper Interests

China's investment in the natural resources sector continues to boggle (at least non-Chinese) minds. This week two more deals of major importance have been announced.

In one deal, the China Railway Construction Corporation and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings agreed to pay nearly $700 million Canadian in cash to purchase Vancouver-based Corriente Resources, which owns the mining rights to several copper deposits in Ecuador.

No sooner was that deal announced, than London-traded Kazakhyms, another copper producer, received a $3 billion loan from the Chinese Development Bank and a Kazakh sovereign wealth fund. According to the Financial Times, the loan will allow Kazakhyms to fully develop a copper project located in northern Kazakhstan ("Kazakhyms Gets Funding From China," Dec. 30, 2009). In 2009, the total Chinese investment in Kazakhstan reached $13 billion, the FT reported.

The enormous internal demand in China for infrastructure-related development is driving the country, and its state-related firms, to acquire the rights to more and more natural resources.

Stay tuned. It seems likely that the Chinese have only just started their purchasing spree. And for those more interested in China, the "Comparative Environmental Law" course I teach beginning in January 2010 will focus in part on environmental and natural resources developments in China.