Revealed: China state-owned contractor involved in Nicaragua canal project

One of China's largest state-owned companies is carrying out a technical feasibility study of the Nicaraguan inter-oceanic canal project, which, if built, would be the world's largest civil engineering project.

"We have got one of [CRCC's] engineering groups; a lot of work is being done by their design institutes," said Bill Wild, chief project adviser of HKND, the Hong Kong-based company that was awarded the concession of building the canal a month ago.

Wild said parts of the CCRC team working on the canal had worked on water-management aspects of the Three Gorges Dam, China's largest ever civil engineering project in Sichuan province.

The Nicaraguan canal, which is expected to be significantly longer than the 77-kilometre Panama Canal, is estimated to cost US$40 billion to build. Construction is set to begin by the end of 2014 and completed by 2019, HKND chairman Wang Jing said at a press conference last month.

With almost a quarter of a million employees, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) is one of China's largest contractors. Under supervision of the State Council, it has built more than half of the nation's railroads. It has also built expressways in Algeria and the metro line in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 

"They formally started once the concession was signed," Wild said, referring to the ratification of a special law by the Nicaraguan parliament on June 13, which granted HKND an extendable 50-year lease over the construction and operation of the canal.