Chinese investment 'nothing to fear': Grímsson
- By He Shan
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China.org.cn, September 6, 2011
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Huang Nubo, chairman of Zhongkun Group, foreground, shows a map of northern europe as he introduces his land-purchasing plan in Iceland to the press at a meeting room of his company's headquarters building in Beijing, Sept. 2, 2011. [CFP] |
Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson said he welcomed Chinese investment in response to the controversy surrounding the proposed sale of a remote tract of Icelandic land to a Chinese businessman, according to a Financial Times report Monday.
Mr. Grímsson described the investment as a sign of Iceland's closer ties with the rising Asian power, while accusing Europe and the US of dumping their North Atlantic neighbor after the devastating financial crisis three years ago.
He said: "China and India lent a helping hand to Iceland in many constructive ways, while Europe was unfriendly and the U.S. was absent."
Huang Nubo, chairman of China's Zhongkun Group, announced plans to purchase 300 square kilometers of untapped wilderness in northeastern Iceland for tourism development, arousing the concern of critics.
The plot, equivalent to 0.3 percent of Iceland's total land area, is said to sit near to a potential deep-water harbor and one of Iceland's glacier-fed rivers.
Critics fear the provisional deal, which would be the largest investment made by a Chinese company in Iceland, will give China a strategic foothold in the country as global warming opens up the nearby Arctic to oil exploration and shipping.
Responding to questions at a news conference last Friday in Beijing, Huang Nubo said that his investment carried no political implications and was purely a commercial project. He also said the investment awaited approval from both Chinese and Icelandic regulators.
Grímsson told the Financial Times that although the deal would be subject to a strict review, he saw no reason to worry about Chinese investment.
During his presidency, he has received more Chinese delegates than the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain combined.
Grímsson has been president of Iceland since 1996. The Financial Times described him as "a political maverick often at odds with the country's center-left government."
China's business press carried the story above on Tuesday.
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