Chinese industry worried chimney accident might affect their business in India

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Chinese industry worried chimney accident might affect their business in India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/world/china/Chinese-industry-worried-chimney-accident-might-affect-their-business-in-India/articleshow/5065186.cms

Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 September 2009, 06:02pm IST

BEIJING: Chinese companies are worried that the chimney accident that killed 46 workers in Chhattisgarh might give Indian authorities a stronger
[table=200][/table]reason to refuse visa applications from local workers. A Chinese company, SEPCO, was involved in the construction at the accident site.

"It is definately not the kind of publicity we wanted at a time when India at this time when visas are getting difficult to obtain," a manager with a Chinese company with investments in India, told TNN.

He said New Delhi is coming under severe pressure from trade unions and political parties complaining that Chinese workers are stealing away jobs for locals. Though the number of Chinese workers going to India are extremely less, it is causing some psychological effect, he said.

Apprehension in the Chinese industry was also reflected by the state-run Global Times, which quoted a India-based Chinese executives as saying that the image of Chinese companies will suffer due to the accident.

"Some Indians complain that Chinese companies leave the country as soon as they make a profit and never integrate into India's economic development," the paper quoted the executive as saying.

Chinese authorities are keeping quite about reports that the Indian police has asked employees of SEPCOnot to leave the country following the accident last week.

But a South Asia expert working with a state-run think-tank has roundly blamed the Indian contractor hired by the Chinese company, SEPCO, for the accident.

"SEPCO should have been more careful in choosing a more-qualified Indian contractor," Hu Shisheng, an expert on South Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said.

"There is nothing wrong with any investigation into SEPCO," he was quoted by the state-run Global Times as saying. "It is not the main party to be blamed for the fatality.But as a contractor, it bears some legal responsibility," he said.

"On the other hand, it is also a lesson for Indian authorities to learn about the incompetence of local construction companies," Hu said.

The paper cited reports in the Indian media that said SEPCO had subcontracted the construction of the 275-meter chimney to Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL), an Indian company.

The paper quoted an unnamed former employee of the Shandong-based SEPCO as saying that the company has been operating in India since 1998 while maintaining "a fairly sound relationship with its local counterparts".

The company has undertaken 15 overseas projects in places as diverse as India, Nigeria and Brazil.

"Most of the Chinese workers there are technicians,Fatal accidents are not rare for large-scale power plant projects in India. But the latest accident is one of the most deadly to my knowledge," Hu was quoted as saying.