Liu Zhiming

Chairman, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation

The Tazara Railway that links Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia, to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was built under arduous conditions by thousands of African and Chinese labourers between 1970 and 1975. It remains, for visiting Chinese diplomats, a symbol of China-Africa friendship. The railway was overseen by the Ministry of Railways’ Foreign Aid Department. Its capitalist-era incarnation, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, is even more active in Africa today. With offices in Algeria, Botswana, Djibouti, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, CCECC has undertaken major rail and highway projects in Algeria and Nigeria (AAC Vol 3 No 4 and AAC Vol 3 No 8). In Nigeria, CCECC claims its ‘localisation’ strategy has created jobs for 20,000 workers.

CCECC has been run for over a decade by Liu Zhiming. Liu is a 1982 graduate of the Changsha Railway Institute, a civil engineering university run by the Railways Ministry. As Chairman (and CCECC’s Communist Party Secretary), Liu supervised its decoupling from the Railways Ministry’s control in 2000. In 2003, it became the principal overseas arm of the China Railway Construction Corporation.

Since 2008, Liu has been a Vice-President of the Chinese Arab Friendship Association: he is the only representative of industry on the board. CAFA Chairman Tomur Dawamat is an Uighur former Vice-Chairman of the National People’s Congress. In October, a CAFA delegation of 117 bureaucrats, academics, media, and Uighur artists met ten Arab allies in Tripoli, Libya. In March, the government of Chad announced a $7.5 bn. deal with CCECC to build a 1,344-km. railway.