Beijing should let foreign firms list, says Kazakhstan metals firm seeking Chinese ‘New Silk Road’ money
Kazakhstan government-backed Eurasian Resources Group, which is seeking Chinese finance for four metals projects involving total investment of US$6 billion, has called on Beijing to open up China’s stock markets for foreign firms to raise funds.
The company, the world’s largest producer of ferrochrome – an intermediate material used to give stainless steel its anti-corrosion properties – is in talks with Chinese firms on four projects.
Several preliminary agreements were signed in the past two years for potential Chinese state-backed firms to participate in the projects, whose signing was witnessed by state leaders of China and the central Asian nation as part of China’s “New Silk Road initiatives”, according to Eurasian chief executive Benedikt Sobotka.
“There is a saying in our nation that landlocked Kazakhstan has no need for an ocean since China was the ocean for the nation,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Boao forum in Hainan province. “The same can be said of our company.”
Luxembourg-based Eurasian was previously listed on the London stock exchange, until it was privatised in late 2013 by a consortium led by the Kazakhstan government that now owns a 40 per cent stake.
There is a saying in our nation that landlocked Kazakhstan has no need for an ocean since China was the ocean for the nation
Sobotka said the company would be interested in listing on mainland China’s stock markets to help raise funds for its projects, but current regulations made it “almost impossible” to do so.