Chinese Development Projects
Chinese worker in Trincomalee
At Chinese work sites I’ve seen in Trinco and Hambantota, many of the workers are Chinese. Dudes in the neighborhood say they got like 300-500 Rs a day for odd jobs, sweeping up and stuff. Which sucks. Some of the work is specialized of course, but many of these development projects don’t necessarily bring jobs. China today has over 740,000 workers abroad, and it’s causing tensions.
It seemed as if this village in northern Vietnam had struck gold when a Chinese and a Japanese company arrived to jointly build a coal-fired power plant. Thousands of jobs would start flowing in, or so the residents hoped. A Chinese worker at a power plant construction site in Vietnam. China, famous for its export of cheap goods, is increasingly known around the world for shipping out cheap labor. Four years later, the Haiphong Thermal Power Plant is nearing completion. But only a few hundred Vietnamese ever got jobs. Most of the workers were Chinese, about 1,500 at the peak. (New York Times)
I don’t know what the ratio is at Sri Lankan development projects, but I’m sure a lot of the labor is Chinese. This is not necessarily bad, we may not have the required expertise here. However, I think a big priority of development should be jobs. Infrastructure is important, but it’s also important to put money in peoples pockets and to develop our human resources. If there are jobs Sri Lankans can do, they should have priority. If there’s stuff beyond our ken, we should get training. I don’t think that stuff is negotiated heavily when we get the projects, and there isn’t much public pressure. We’re just vaguely aware that there’s some power plant being done in the north west and a port in the south.
However, I think we should ask, and even demand. The Chinese look out for themselves, they get contracts for their businesses and jobs for their people. Sri Lanka needs to stop looking at these projects as gifts (which they’re not) and as business deals. The Chinese are getting theirs, we need to make sure that Sri Lanka gets ours. After the ministers get their commission, we should make sure that the people get jobs.
There is a house (mansion) made in Kirulapone which was done by about 7 Chinese engineers and helpers. amazing. Ppl say it’s Chamal R’s. Possible hearsay..who knows.
Nicely said…the Norwegians just gave WUSC 300 million for vocational training…most of it will go to the NE..let’s hope this gives people there the required skills and the Provincial Authorities can demand for jobs for trained personnel.
Development negotiations mostly focus on commissions and field trips for the donors to monitor. Little trickles down to the intended recipient. That must change.
It has to change!
Look, the Chinese are FAR more efficient than Sri Lankans. It might be unpalatable but a lot of Sri Lankans are generally greedy, lazy, good-for-nothing oafs who are looking for the next bribe to slip into their pockets. If Sri Lankans were building Hambantota port, the only thing that would be there by now would be the “mul gala.” I don’t think that is an over-exaggeration. The Chinese workers work day AND night, and they get the job done. If it means the port is completed ahead of schedule and opens early, then I say fu*k the lazy ass Sri Lankan workers. The long term benefits to Sri Lanka as a whole far outweigh the temporary creation of local jobs.
I forgot to add, if it were Sri Lankan workers working at these projects they would be going on strike at a drop a hat. Maybe they the cook didn’t put enough salt in their parippu, or maybe there were some rocks in their bath packet, or maybe they just felt like a few days off work. The Chinese don’t tolerate such shite.
The local value addition from these Chinese projects seems pretty limited.
Add to that the highly inflated costs (due to the corruption) and the market interest rates apparently paid on the funding and all you have left with is the physical infrastructure.
If the infrastructure is not properly designed (badly sighted for example), then the return from that will be small.
I don’t know, one reason could be that there aren’t enough *consistently good* local workers available. I have heard many guys who own lands/paddy fields complain that its hard to find “minissu” these days, and most people just come and go because there is more work than there are laborers. Few years back, police nabbed some Indian (and Chinese, iirc) laborers who were illegally working in SL paddy fields.
It may be possible that our guys have moved on to better jobs, or even without jobs, don’t like to go for so-called “menial” jobs, even while whining all the way. If it is the former, then it’s good. Have you noticed even beggars these days are better dressed compared to few decades ago? And how many people own at least a moto-bike and how many cycle shops have closed down?
As C. A. Chandraprema once said, even our terrorists look(ed) better-fed than other terrorists.
The worst part about all this is that the loans for these projects are being taken out from a Chinese Bank called Axim Bank (or something like that) at commercial rates. One of the conditions was to have Chinese workers! WTF? As if it wasn’t enough that we have to pay commercial rates, we even have to give employment opportunities to them! :(
Stormcrow – you can’t argue that local workers are inefficient therefore use foreigners.
What are we supposed to do with the locals – put them on a permanent dole or let them starve?
The government needs to set policies that will encourage the creation of employment. If inefficiency is a problem, they need to start working on means of improving productivity, starting in secondary school if necessary.
Laws that make it difficult to sack workers encourage complacency and slack while making firms reluctant to hire workers. With the right policies we can get a lot more out of the locals.
Jack Point,
I didn’t say that local workers are “inefficient”. To the contrary, having been in a so called first world country for some time before coming to SL, I have the opinion that our guys are rather great at many stuff.
But the fact remains that good men are hard to find, this is not because majority are bad, but simply because there is more work than there are men. I hope you get this point, which should have been clear from the rest of my post, although perhaps my emphasis was wrongly placed. You can verify if you know anyone who owns a agricultural land or at least a building site.
May be it’s just cheaper for the Chinese to import labor. May be they don’t want to pay a good enough salary for locals to make them appear consistently, but still can get Chinese for lower salaries. May be. Fact is, there *have been* illegal foreign workers in Sri Lanka which means at least under some conditions, foreign labor is cheaper in SL! (which, _in a way_, is a positive thing)
I generally agree with what else you say about labor policy etc, but that’s besides my point.
I think I read in Sunday Times or some other news paper that most of these Chinese labourers are actually Chinese prisoners. I’m not sure. Years ago when Koreans worked here, they say the rat population rose dramatically, because the Koreans were making soups from Vipers. Do Chinese eat frogs? If so, two things will happen. First, there’d be twice as much insects as there are now. Secondly, Bandula Gunawardana will see the inside of a Chinese belly.