Hong Kong political heavyweights have raised issues over a plan by Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison Holdings to promote its Panama Canal port operations, saying the deal shouldn’t be seen purely via a business lens as the companies had been of strategic significance to China.
The warnings on Saturday piled stress on Li’s flagship firm after two Beijing places of work overseeing Hong Kong affairs posted two scathing commentaries on their web sites criticising the deal.
The corporate has remained silent since revealing on March 4 the shock deal to promote its abroad port belongings, together with operations at every finish of the Panama Canal, to a consortium led by US funding agency BlackRock for US$23 billion. The deal will generate US$19 billion in money for CK Hutchison.
United States President Donald Trump hailed BlackRock’s deal, saying Washington could be “reclaiming” the canal from Chinese language management. CK Hutchison got here underneath intense stress over its Panama operations when Trump retook the White Home in January.
In saying the deal, the corporate stated the transaction was “purely business in nature and wholly unrelated to latest political information reviews regarding the Panama ports”.
However Starry Lee Wai-king, the town’s sole delegate to the nation’s prime legislative physique, stated firms would discover making “pure business selections” tough within the present atmosphere as politics and enterprise had been intertwined.
