COFIDES, as manager of the Fund for Foreign Investment (FIEX), has financed part of this BEFESA AGUA project in China, with a 6.7-million euro indirect equity holding in the Chinese host company, Qingdao BCTA Desalination Co. Ltd.

The host company will build and operate a 100 000-m3 (daily capacity) seawater desalination plant at Qingdao, China, for 25 years to supply potable water under DBOO (design, build, own and operate) terms.

This is the first major project involving the desalination of seawater for human consumption in China and the first to be funded under project finance arrangements. The total investment amounts to around 133.3 million euros, 30 % of which will be provided as equity and the remaining 70 % through the purchase of project bonds.

Qingdao, where the desalination plant will be built, is a port in Shandong province and one of the most important cities on the northern coast of China. The project is of significant strategic interest in the framework of stimulation of the Chinese economy as a whole, and forms part of a Desalination Industry Plan backed by the Chinese National Development and Reform Committee.

While the desalination market is only just emerging in China, its prospects for growing into a large-scale business in the next few years are excellent. Spain, in turn, is the global leader in reverse osmosis desalination. With one of the largest installed capacities in the world, BEFESA AGUA it is well positioned to enter this new market.

China is faced with the need to supply 20 % of the human population with water, while it has only 7 % of the planet’s hydric resources. Guaranteeing potable water to all its inhabitants is, therefore, a sizeable challenge. Supply is restricted periodically in over half of China’s 661 cities, and in 100 water shortages are severe. According to the World Bank, pollution has reached such levels in one-third of Chinese rivers that the water is not even apt for industrial uses.

> About BEFESA AGUA

BEFESA AGUA, an international technology firm specialising in hydric resource generation and management, develops, designs, builds and operates infrastructure for the entire water cycle. It is wholly owned by BEFESA Medio Ambiente, the predominant company in Abengoa’s environmental services business group. Over 60 years of experience and ongoing investment in R&D+i have earned BEFESA AGUA world-wide standing in technologies such as desalination. In this field specifically, BEFESA has built reverse osmosis technology plants whose total capacity amounts to over 1.3 million cubic metres of water daily, making the company one of the world’s key actors in this industry.

BEFESA AGUA is present in 16 countries. The 15-25-year concessions and O&M contracts for large-scale desalination plants currently held by the company in Spain, Northern Africa, India and China together supply nearly eight million people with water. www.befesaagua.com