Macau businessman David Chow Kam Fai is looking for investment projects in Mozambique after the difficulties he has faced in implementing projects in Praia, the capital of Cabo Vede (Cape Verde), according to the China-Lusophone Brief (CLBrief).

CLBrief, a news service about China and the Portuguese-speaking countries, reported that on 18 October, the first day of the Macau International Fair (MIF), Chow met with the Minister of Trade and Industry of Mozambique, Ragendra de Sousa, to discuss investment opportunities.

Lourenço Sambo, president of the Mozambican Agency for the Promotion of Investments and Exports (Apiex), participated in the meeting, according to CLBrief.

Mozambique was the MIF guest country this year, with Sousa and Sambo travelling to Macau to promote their country as a prime destination for investments by Chinese companies.

CLBrief also wrote that Sambo was particularly active and presented a set of concrete investment projects, which included real estate and tourism deals in several of the country’s 11 provinces.

The sources quoted by the China-Lusophone Brief said Chow evaluated some of these projects, notably in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where world-class natural gas deposits will begin to be explored in four to five years.

Chow’s investment project in Cabo Verde, through his Legend Globe Investment Company, Ltd, appears to be facing some difficulties, according to CLBrief, due to issues being raised by the archipelago’s central bank about the establishment of a commercial bank.

The Macau businessman signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cape Verdean government in June 2017 to open a credit institution that would be called Banco Sino-Atlântico, under a tourism development project that would include a hotel, a casino and several other facilities.

Bank sources in the archipelago told CLBrief that the central bank is questioning Chow’s investor profile as he has no banking credentials and said this objection is a difficult obstacle to overcome for setting up Banco Sino-Atlantic.

The central bank has also expressed reservations about the bank’s ability to comply with international regulations in the sector, given that it will receive money from both the revenue of the conventional casino that is under construction as well as from online gaming.

Local sources questioned whether Chow’s investment project in Cabo Verde remains feasible, given that it was designed in an integrated way, to include tourism, gambling and banking, with Banco Sino-Atlântico as the centerpiece of the project. (macauhub)