On August 14th, the (Somaliland) Minister of Investment Mohamed Ahmed Mohamoud and a Maxtor Bank, a major Chinese bank has signed a billion dollar Memorandum of Understanding. The press event featured the bank’s leadership and the minister signing the deal where they both gave details on the nature of the investment.
If all goes according to plan, this will be by all accounts the foreign largest investment which dwarfs even Berbera DP World.
There are few problems that make the deal seem bit murky at best, starting with the nature of Chinese banking services. Banking in China is a private-public partnership where the Chinese government owns 50% of all banks. This alone makes the size and the caliber of the delegation seem unlikely.
The other red flag is the existence of the bank itself. We simply cannot find this major bank on any registry.
Somaliland Chronicle has contacted China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Bank of China to try and find out more about Maxtor Bank and it turns out that they are not aware of the existence of this bank. They suggested that we double check the name of the bank but assured us that Maxtor Bank is not on their registry.