On May 30, the Ministry of Economy of Georgia published a statement noting that the Chinese-Singaporean consortium participating in the Anaklia port construction process is not included in the list of sanctioned companies. In the same statement, it is mentioned that one of the companies of the consortium is included in the so-called Entity List, which imposes certain restrictions on them, however, the Ministry claims that this “refers only to restrictions on the implementation of specific transactions, and does not entail actual sanctions”.
The Ministry’s statement was published unchanged by Business Insider Georgia, although the source of the information was not specified in the material. A part of the statement, without information about the restrictions imposed by the US on CCCC, was published by pro-government POSTV on its Facebook page.
The statement of the Ministry of Economy of Georgia is manipulative because it claims that despite being included in the so-called Entity List, the company China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC), which is part of the winning consortium in the tender announced for the construction of Anaklia deepwater port, is not sanctioned. In fact, the company is on the consolidated sanctions list of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control due to the restrictions imposed. The company and its subsidiary CCCG are mentioned as sanctioned entities by the US Embassy in Georgia and the spokesperson of the US State Department.
On the website of the US Department of Commerce, we read that CCCC and its 5 affiliated companies were included in the Entity List in 2020, because of their participation in the construction of artificial military islands in the South China Sea. Hence, restrictions were imposed on the supply of goods defined by the regulations of the Export Administration for these companies, and for this, it became necessary to obtain a special permit. Currently, the mentioned companies are included in the list of Non-Sdn Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies, which is the list of sanctioned Chinese companies. In 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning American legal entities and individuals from investing in companies linked to the Chinese military due to human rights violations and threats to US national security. Among these companies were CCCC and one of its subsidiaries CCCG.
Despite the claim by the Ministry of Economy that these restrictions do not constitute sanctions, CCCC is on the sanctions list of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. This list, called the Consolidated Sanctions List, includes those persons and organizations for which non-blocking measures have been introduced, including specific types of transactions, investments, and various types of activities.
The US Embassy in Georgia also refers to the restrictions imposed on CCCC as sanctions in the 2020 statement.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller spoke about CCCG, a subsidiary of CCCC, and said that the company is sanctioned due to military and intelligence-research activities, as well as the development of weapons and military equipment production.
It should be noted that the US is not the only entity to impose restrictions on CCCC. Between 2011 and 2017, the World Bank banned the company and its related organizations from participating in World Bank-funded construction projects due to a 2009 fraud scandal in a road construction project in the Philippines.
In 2014, CCCC was suspended from a port construction contract by Tanzania, citing artificially inflated prices for the project.
In 2018, the company was embroiled in another scandal due to fraud, corruption, and environmental damage during ongoing construction projects in Malaysia and Equatorial Guinea.
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