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See the full Campaign Report (English)
In the private sector, the Bank of China (BOC), China Construction Bank (CCB) and China Development Bank (CDB) jointly financed 1,759.07 million for the Banshkhali 1224 MW Coal Power Plant owned by S. Alam Group, SEPCO-III (China) and HTG Group (China). PowerChina invested $378 million in the Barishal 350 MW Coal Power Plant owned by Sinohydro Corporation (China) and ISO Tech Group (Bangladesh). In response to the global pressure to phase out coal, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in September 2021 during the United Nations General Assembly that China would not develop any coal power plants abroad. Even then, CHEXIM is to finance $1,440 million for the Payra 1320 MW Coal Power Plant (Phase-II). CHEXIM has never replied to the appeal of BWGED, along with other organizations, which called for not to finance this devastating power plant. The over-reliance on Chinese finance has negative impacts on the foreign currency reserves. Bangladesh is currently facing serious shortage of foreign currency and struggling to pay installments of international credit, in addition to the capacity charges of the idle power plants. China-financed Payra Coal Power Plant is the largest receiver of the capacity charges, around $182 million per year. Other projects with low economic return may further weigh down the economy. The projects financed by China under BRI have serious allegations of violating Human Rights and environmental standards. Since 2016, 12 innocent villagers and laborers have been killed as they raised their demands for proper compensation and remunerations. Nobody has been tried for brutal killings. On the contrary, one of the villagers was taken to jail under the Digital Security Act (DSA) for raising the environmental problems of the project on social media. In June 2019, a serious clash spread out between Bangladeshi and Chinese workers at Payra Coal Power Plant, when a Bangladeshi laborer fell from the boiler and died. A Chinese laborer was killed in the clash. As a response to the clash, the power plant authority filed cases against more than 1,200 Bangladeshi laborers and sacked them from their jobs in the power plant. The poor laborers have neither been released from the cases nor gotten their jobs back till now. Laborers of Rupsha 800 MW LNG Power Plant also got criminal cases and lost their jobs. China is the largest financier and equipment supplier of renewable energy (RE) in the world, with the installation of 228 GW of utility-scale solar power in its territory, which is more than that of the rest of the world combined. It also invested $271 billion in 2023 for 210 GW of RE globally. In the last ten years, China invested $546 billion in RE, majorly in the developing world. Chinese companies are involved in developing solar and wind power plants in Bangladesh. However, the scale of Chinese investments is comparatively tiny and insufficient. It is also noticed that the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) generated by the RE projects financed or developed by Chinese companies is significantly higher. So, we demand for a green and equitable transition with social, environmental, cultural and economic justice in BRI investment to save the next generations and Mother Earth.