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China Builds EU Beachhead With $5 Billion City in Belarus
Jakarta Globe ^ | 05/27/2013 | Aliaksandr Kudrytski

Posted on 05/27/2013 4:47:33 AM PDT by TexGrill

China is building an entire city in the forests near the Belarusian capital Minsk to create a manufacturing springboard between the European Union and Russia.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko allotted an area 40 percent larger than Manhattan around Minsk’s international airport for the $5 billion development, which will include enough housing to accommodate 155,000 people, according to Chinese and Belarusian officials.

Lukashenko, who’s led his former Soviet state of 9.5 million for two decades, is turning to China to help revive a $60 billion economy that’s needed $6.5 billion of bailouts from the International Monetary Fund and Russia since 2009. The hub will put Chinese exporters within 170 miles of EU members Poland and Lithuania and give them tax-free entry into Russia and Kazakhstan, which share a customs union. It will also let them draw from a workforce that’s 99.6 percent literate and makes $560 a month on average, half the Polish wage.

“This is a unique project,” Gong Jianwei, China’s ambassador to Belarus, said on state television May 17, after the project won regulatory approval. “Nobody will be able to build anything like this industrial park anywhere else in Europe anymore. The infrastructure is so powerful.”

(Excerpt) Read more at thejakartaglobe.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: belarus; china; chinabelarus
Looks like Beijing has launched its 'Build Phantom Cities' campaign into the Belarus heartland. It's great for marketing, just as long as nobody visits the so-called city.
1 posted on 05/27/2013 4:47:33 AM PDT by TexGrill
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To: TexGrill

How many Chinese laborers will be sent to build this city?


2 posted on 05/27/2013 5:11:48 AM PDT by Cowboy Bob (Democrats: Robbing Peter to buy Paul's vote.)
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To: TexGrill

The idea of building entire cities to be populated later is new as far as I know. We’ve had several articles and many photographs of built from scratch cities in China that now stand mostly empty. Central planning taken to its logical conclusion, I guess.


3 posted on 05/27/2013 5:16:53 AM PDT by Will88
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To: TexGrill

Chinese world colonization continues...


4 posted on 05/27/2013 5:25:31 AM PDT by clearcarbon
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To: Cowboy Bob

I was in San Jose, Costa Rica on business this past year. In the northern suburbs, China donated a sports stadium to the city. When built, China sent thousands of workers over to CR, housed them in prefab units, completed the construction of the stadium and then sent them all home.


5 posted on 05/27/2013 6:56:42 AM PDT by Zuben Elgenubi
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To: TexGrill

I think even the most Free Trade Communist of the Free Traders have to be questioning this Phony Chinese City in Belarus. It looks stupid.

I want to see a Free Trade Communist try to spin this. They are getting as stupid as the Global Warming believers....


6 posted on 05/27/2013 8:14:39 AM PDT by SeminoleCounty (GOP - Greenlighting Obama's Programs)
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To: TexGrill

Exactly. Guaranteed to be another abandoned city - probably even before it is completed.


7 posted on 05/27/2013 9:08:37 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: SeminoleCounty
I want to see a Free Trade Communist try to spin this. They are getting as stupid as the Global Warming believers....

When the SHTF in China they (Chinese 1%) want someplace to go.

8 posted on 05/27/2013 9:26:48 AM PDT by Mike Darancette (Plan "B" is now Plan "A")
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