{"id":139318,"date":"2012-07-04T17:17:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=139318"},"modified":"2012-07-04T17:48:34","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T00:48:34","slug":"angolas-chinese-built-ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/07\/angolas-chinese-built-ghost-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Angola’s Chinese Built Ghost Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

China seems to have taken a symptom of their real-estate bubble<\/a> with them in their continued investment in Africa<\/a>. Over the last three years, state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation<\/a> (\u4e2d\u56fd\u4e2d\u4fe1\u96c6\u56e2\u516c\u53f8) has built Nova Cidade de Kilamba (Kilamba New City),\u00a0a $3.5 billion housing development 18 miles outside of Angola’s capital of Luanda. Today, Xinhua reported optimistically on the city’s construction<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

A giant new Chinese-built satellite city has sprung up on an isolated spot some 30km outside Angola’s capital, Kuanda [sic<\/em>].<\/p>\n

In a promotional video made by Angolan government, this city has been titled as the “jewelin Angola’s post-war reconstruction crown.” People will enjoy a new life style, different from the dust and confusion of central Luanda where millions live in sprawling slums.<\/p>\n

[…]He Wenping, director of African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told a journalist with Global Times, “China has constructed many economic housings and infrastructure projects for African countries, including roads and bridges, which are beneficial to all African people, and serve as a base for African economic growth.”<\/p>\n

Built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in three year at a cost of US$3.5billion, this Angola residential project has completed 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Xinhua article was released to refute BBC’s recent coverage of Kilamba, showing the new development to be similar to Chinese “ghost cities” like Ordos<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0a massive and luxurious development that is too far-removed and far too expensive for locals to move into<\/a><\/strong>. The BBC reports:<\/p>\n

The place is eerily quiet, voices bouncing off all the fresh concrete and wide-open tarred roads.<\/p>\n

There are hardly any cars and even fewer people, just dozens of repetitive rows of multi-coloured apartment buildings, their shutters sealed and their balconies empty.<\/p>\n

Only a handful of the commercial units are occupied, mostly by utility companies, but there are no actual shops on site, and so – with the exception of a new hypermarket located at one entrance – there is nowhere to buy food.<\/p>\n

[…]Apartments at Kilamba are being advertised online costing between $120,000 and $200,000 – well out of reach of the estimated two-thirds of Angolans who live on less than $2 a day.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The BBC piece, which provides more of the political and economic context surrounding the “ghost city”, came a day after their release of video footage from the vacant streets of Kilamba<\/a>. The following YouTube video contrasts the Angolan government’s promotional video of the city-to-be with the BBC’s documentation of the empty buildings and plazas:<\/p>\n