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The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports children caught in conflict and natural disasters are most at risk of child labor and of falling prey to trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse. To mark the World Day Against Child Labor, the ILO is calling on governments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

The world is facing its greatest refugee and displacement crisis, with more than 65 million people forcibly displaced by war and persecution. Children are among those most at risk of exploitation from the breakdown of family and social systems, the loss of homes, schools, and livelihoods.

The ILO reports an estimated 168 million children are in child labor globally, including 85 million engaged in the worst forms of child labor. This includes the use of children who work in slave-like conditions, in hazardous work, such as mining and agriculture, and in the use of children in combat or as prostitutes.

The ILO reports child labor is most prevalent in Asia and Africa.

ILO Senior Technical Officer on Crisis and Fragile Situations Insaf Nizam told VOA children are particularly abused in situations of conflict in Africa, where many are recruited as child soldiers by armed groups in conflicts such as Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

“We also have seen certain armed groups using children for extreme types of violence as suicide bombers or forcibly recruiting them as brides and for sexual slavery.  So, the types of violations against children have increased in diversity,” he said.

Nizam said children also are recruited as soldiers and suffer other forms of exploitation in conflicts in Asia and the Middle East.  But he noted in countries such as the Philippines and Myanmar in eastern Asia, children run greater risks from natural disasters.

“You get a lot of displacement of children.  Families lose their livelihoods.  Their community networks are lost.  They are displaced.  Communities become poor overnight.  They lose their sources of income.  Schools are either damaged or destroyed due to natural disasters.  So, there children are pushed easily because of that,” he said.

Nizam said conflicts tend to grab world attention more quickly than natural disasters.  This, he said, is especially true of slow onset disasters, such as drought, climate change and floods.  

He added these situations are as harmful as conflicts to children, who are easily exploited by nefarious people.
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General Electric says Jeff Immelt is stepping down as CEO and John Flannery, president and CEO of the conglomerate’s health care unit, will take over the post in August.

 

The 61-year-old Immelt will stay on as chairman until his retirement from the position at the end of the year, with the 55-year-old Flannery stepping into the role after that.

 

Immelt has been at the helm of the conglomerate for 16 years, overseeing a transformation that included selling many of the company’s units. Over that time, General Electric sold its insurance, credit card, plastics and security divisions.

 

It also invested more heavily in new technologies, including a recent $1.65 billion acquisition of LM Wind Power, a Denmark-based manufacturer of rotor blades for wind turbines.

 

Flannery is a longtime General Electric executive, starting his career at GE Capital in 1987. He became president and CEO of the company’s equity unit in 2002 and eventually joined the health care unit in 2014, focusing on advanced technologies.

 

In addition, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bornstein was named vice chair and Kieran Murphy was named president and CEO of GE Healthcare to succeed Flannery.

 

GE said Monday that the moves were part of its succession plan.

 

Shares of General Electric Co. climbed more than 3 percent in premarket trading. They are down about 7.6 percent over the last 12 months.

 

 
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They were no common protests. As angry farmers dumped milk and vegetables on the streets in India’s western Maharashtra state and six farmers were killed by police in Madhya Pradesh state when they blocked roads and burnt vehicles, the spotlight has turned on growing rural distress in the country.

The protests flared unexpectedly when bumper harvests following a good monsoon were supposed to augur well for rural prosperity.

But the opposite has happened: a price crash due to the crop glut not just wiped away any prospect of a profit but left farmers struggling to pay back loans which they often raise to buy seeds, fertilizers and other inputs to plant crops.

Low crop prices

The violence witnessed last week was a rare eruption of anger in the rural community in a country whose economy is the world’s fastest-growing, but where tens of millions of farmers are coping with stagnating incomes as they struggle to make a living off small land holdings.

Experts say decades of neglect in crucial infrastructure in the farm sector has left behind India’s countryside. With no easy access to markets close to villages and few storage facilities, farmers say they are at the mercy of traders and middlemen who often do not give them a fair price for their produce.

“The farmer does not have the right to set the price. It is the middlemen who set the price. They buy my produce for Rs 10 per kilo and sell it for Rs. 20 or 30 to customers. This is a major problem in the country,” lamented Bhim Singh, a farmer in northern India. “There should be better marketing platforms for us.”

 

Once a week, he makes an 80 kilometer trip to Gurugram, a flourishing business hub near the capital New Delhi, where he sells directly to consumers to get a better price. But he says he is forced to dump the rest in a wholesale market for prices that barely cover his cost of cultivation.

Farmers always seem to suffer

“There is a strong pro-consumer bias in the system,” said agriculture economist Ashok Gulati at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi. “When there is a drought, as there was in 2014 and 2015, farmers suffer as production drops, and when there is a good harvest they suffer again as prices crash in the absence of commensurate storage and processing facilities or due to export restrictions.”

 

Rural experts have long urged the government to build more roads and markets closer to villages and storage facilities that will make it possible for them to sell produce at better prices when there is a bumper crop instead of resorting to distress sales as has happened this year.

Better roads and storage facilities needed

In fact, although food production has increased steadily in India making it self-sufficient, farmers incomes have lagged behind. New Delhi based agriculture expert Devender Sharma pointed out the average income of a farmer in 17 states, as per the government’s 2016 economic survey, is a meager Rs. 20,000 (about $300) per year.

“The real income of farmers is static for last 25 years. There is something terribly, terribly going wrong… he requirement is overhaul of agriculture policies. We need to give farmers his due income,” he points out.

Too many farmers

The low incomes are not surprising — too many people depend on agriculture for a living. Farming accounts for just 15 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, but it supports more than half the country’s 1.3 billion people.

In a cover story this month, a leading news magazine, India Today, called India “No country for Farmers” and said the country “desperately needs another revolution in agriculture for the farmer to break out of his vicious cycle of misery.”

Reports of farmers committing suicide because they cannot repay their loans come in with alarming regularity.

 

Farmer Bhim Singh testified to the sense of despondency in his community. “My children don’t want to go into farming. They say they will toil as labor, work in factories, but they will not farm.”

State takes action after protests

In the wake of protests by farmers in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the state governments have promised to write off bank loans and ensure farmers get better prices for their crops. In the northern Uttar Pradesh state, where elections were held earlier this year, the government has also promised to write off loans.

But this has triggered even greater anger among farmers in the rest of the country, said chief adviser to the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association, P. Chengal Reddy.

Disappointment with new prime minister

He said farmers had pinned high hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had promised to address their problems when he was voted to office three years ago and has pledged to double farm incomes by 2022.

But farmers feel let down because on the ground nothing has changed. And the crash in prices of farm produce this year was for many he says “the last straw.”

“The dichotomy of India is that Indian agriculture is successful but farmers are angry, annoyed, disgusted, unhappy,” Reddy warned. “This [dumping of] vegetables and milk is only a beginning.”

 
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The board of Uber was meeting Sunday to consider placing the CEO of the ride-hailing company on leave, according The New York Times and other news outlets.

 

The Times reported that three people with knowledge of the matter have confirmed that Uber’s board was meeting to consider recommendations from a law firm hired to review Uber’s corporate culture and that the board may decide to put CEO Travis Kalanick on temporary leave.

 

The newspaper said its sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for Uber.

 

Uber Technologies Inc. has been rocked by accusations that its management has fostered a workplace environment where harassment, discrimination and bullying are left unchecked.

 

Uber spokesman Matt Kallman said that he wasn’t sure the company would make a statement after the meeting.

 

Reuters and the tech blog Recode reported the board meeting earlier. The Wall Street Journal also was citing unnamed sources about the meeting.

 

Uber has hired the law firm of former Attorney General Eric Holder to review policies and recommend changes. A report by his firm, Covington & Burling, was expected to be made public soon.

 

Uber announced last week that it fired 20 employees for harassment problems.

 

Under CEO Kalanick, Uber has shaken up the taxi industry in hundreds of cities and turned the San Francisco-based company into the world’s most valuable startup. Uber’s valuation has climbed to nearly $70 billion.

 

Management style at issue

But Kalanick has acknowledged his management style needs improvement. The 40-year-old CEO said earlier this year that he needed to “fundamentally change and grow up.”

 

In February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote on a blog that she had been propositioned by her boss in a series of messages on her first day of work and that superiors ignored her complaints. Uber set up a hotline for complaints after that and hired the law firm of Perkins Coie to investigate.

 

That firm checked into 215 complaints, with 57 still under investigation.

 

Uber has been plagued by more than sexual harassment complaints in recent months. It has been threatened by boycotts, sued and subject to a federal investigation that it used a fake version of its app to thwart authorities looking into whether it is breaking local laws.

Kalanick lost his temper earlier this year in an argument with an Uber driver who was complaining about pay, and Kalanick’s profanity-laced comments were caught on video.

 

In a March conference call with reporters after that incident, board member Arianna Huffington expressed confidence that Kalanick would evolve into a better leader. But Huffington, a founder of Huffington Post, suggested time might be running out.

 

He’s a “scrappy entrepreneur,” she said during the call, but one who needed to bring “changes in himself and in the way he leads.”

 

The board meeting comes fresh on personal tragedy in Kalanick’s life. His mother was killed in late May after the boat she and her husband were riding in hit a rock. Kalanick’s father suffered moderate injuries.

 

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Chief Business Officer Emil Michael is planning to resign as soon as Monday.

 

The company has faced high turnover in its top ranks. In March, Uber’s president, Jeff Jones, resigned after less than a year on the job. He said his “beliefs and approach to leadership” were “inconsistent” with those of the company.

 

In addition to firing 20 employees, Uber said Tuesday that it was hiring an Apple marketing executive, Bozoma Saint John, to help improve its tarnished brand. Saint John most recently was head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music and iTunes.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is likely to impose a new sugar trade deal with Mexico even if final revisions to it fail to win support from the U.S. industry, trade lawyers and experts say.

After announcing a deal this week that would dramatically cut the amount of refined sugar that Mexico ships to the United States, officials from the two countries are working with their industries on final language that would govern its operation.

At issue is a new right of first refusal granted to Mexico to supply all U.S. sugar needs not met by domestic suppliers or other foreign quota holders.

A coalition of American sugar cane and beet farmers and a major refiner want a more explicit guarantee that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not Mexican producers, will dictate what type of sugar fills that gap. They are worried that a flood of refined sugar will pour in, rather than the raw sugar needed to keep U.S. mills running.

Sugar, lumber issues

The final sticking point stands in the way of resolving a years-long dispute over Mexican access to the highly regulated U.S. sugar market, which is protected by a complex web of subsidies and rationed quotas for foreign producers.

The sugar industry is known for its sway in Washington. But its point of view on Mexican imports is not shared by sugar users such as confectioners and soda makers.

The Trump administration wants to clear away the sugar dispute and a lumber trade row with Canada before starting full-scale negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement.

An industry rarely objects to a government-negotiated settlement of its anti-dumping case, and U.S. sugar producers could do little to stop the Commerce Department from implementing a final deal after a two-week comment period, said Seattle-based trade lawyer William Perry, who previously worked at Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission.

‘Never entirely happy’

While the industry could ask the International Trade Commission to overturn the settlement that suspends anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duty orders issued in 2014, chances for success look slim. The panel in 2015 rejected a challenge by two sugar refiners to the previous U.S.-Mexico pact.

“Petitioners are never entirely happy with suspension agreements like this,” Perry said. “They would rather have anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders with rates high enough to shut out imports.”

A Commerce spokesman said that Ross hoped the U.S. sugar industry would ultimately endorse the final agreement.

Willing to compromise

Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the administration was probably willing to compromise on some industry-specific concerns to help reach its larger NAFTA goals of reducing U.S. trade deficits.

The U.S. sugar industry must probably present evidence of new Mexican dumping before going back to Commerce for more changes to the deal, said Daniel Pearson, a senior fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute and former International Trade Commission chairman.

“They would do well to take this agreement and run with it and see how it works,” Pearson said, noting that it raises prices and keeps U.S. refiners well-supplied with raw sugar.

Mexico OK with language

Mexico made major concessions to maintain its access to the lucrative U.S. market, agreeing to ship no less than 70 percent of its quota volume as raw sugar to U.S. refineries. It gave ground on nearly all of the U.S. producers’ demands.

American Sugar Alliance spokesman Phillip Hayes said the final hurdle should be easy to address by making clear that the USDA, not Mexico, can dictate the type and purity level of any additional imports.

But Juan Cortina, head of Mexico’s main sugar trade group, said there was no problem with the language because any additional needs would filled with raw sugar, as Mexican producers would have to keep higher inventories of that grade.
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French cosmetics and luxury goods group L’Oreal has started exclusive talks to sell The Body Shop business to Brazilian makeup company Natura Cosmeticos in a possible 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) deal.

Earlier this year, L’Oreal had announced it was reviewing its strategy for The Body Shop, which it bought for 652 million pounds in 2006, and the sale of the business had attracted a wide range of bidders.

L’Oreal said on Friday it had received a firm offer from Natura Cosmeticos, and the proposed deal put an enterprise value (equity plus debt) of 1 billion euros on the four-decades-old beauty brand — an innovator in the mass marketing of cosmetics made without animal testing and with natural ingredients.

Founded in 1976 by British entrepreneur Anita Roddick, The Body Shop was a pioneer in its field but had since fallen victim to increased competition from newcomers offering similar products based on natural ingredients with no animal testing.

L’Oreal shares were up 0.7 percent in late session trading, as investors welcomed progress toward a deal and the price tag.

“It’s a good move, given that The Body Shop had been one of the least profitable parts of the L’Oreal business,” said Roche Brune Asset Management fund manager Gregoire Laverne.

Keren Finance fund manager Gregory Moore said the price tag had pleased L’Oreal investors, since earlier reports had stated it could be sold for around 800 million euros.

“The stock has reacted well to the news, because there were some people who thought it could be sold for less,” said Moore, whose firm owns L’Oreal shares in its portfolio.

Shares in Natura fell 2.4 percent on the Brazil stock exchange, with Natura saying it would take on loans to finance the deal.

Natura chief executive Joao Paulo Ferreira said The Body Shop would fit in well with Natura’s similar businesses, such as its Aesop brand.

L’Oreal shares are up around 10 percent so far in 2017, broadly in line with the CAC-40, with the stock having touched a record high earlier this month.
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Thanks to an explosion of bike share apps and providers, China is rediscovering its love of bicycles. In cities across the country and in the capital of Beijing, a colorful bike-share revolution is taking over on the streets, helping ease traffic snarls and keeping the air cleaner. It is also creating some problems.

China used to be called the “kingdom of bicycles,” and though cars have taken over in a major way, the growing popularity of bike-share apps seems to indicate two-wheelers are making a come back.

​Color revolution

For drab and dusty Beijing, the bike-share color revolution of yellows, oranges and blues is a welcome sight. People of all ages are enjoying the convenience the bikes provide, which combines cell phone technology, and GPS tracking in some cases, to help users find a ride.

Traveling by car across the sprawling, densely populated city is often a nightmare. Even distances of a few kilometers can take up to an hour when traffic is snarling.

Cheng Li, a bike-share user, said he has been driving his car less and using the metro more since he started using the service about six months ago.

“After I get off the metro, I usually have to walk another kilometer or two, so I’ll grab a bike share and go. It’s less stressful,” Cheng said.

For many, the convenience of cycling is its biggest attraction. Beijing’s city government has long had a bike-share program in place, but many of its bike-share stations were inconveniently located. Getting registered for the smart phone based apps is also much easier.

For Zhang Jian, the bike-share revolution is not only convenient, but nostalgic.

“Now, when we’re riding home from work, especially in the evening, when it’s not as rushed, it feels like we’re reliving the past,” Zhang said.

​Great Wall of bikes

But with a growing number of providers, competition is getting increasingly fierce. One key tactic of providers has been to flood the streets with bikes — so much so that sidewalks are almost blocked in some cases.

The surge of bikes has become a major headache for city governments. Users frequently leave bikes in the middle of the street or just dump them on the sidewalk blocking passageways in an already densely populated city.

In Beijing’s southern district of Daxing, authorities have been fighting the surge by seizing the illegally parked bikes that clog streets and metro exits, one transportation worker said.

“Bike sharing is really convenient, but no one is taking care of the problem of illegally parked bikes,” the worker said. Behind her are several thousand bikes that have been seized. It was unclear when or how they would be returned to the companies that made them.

“Since the Lunar New Year, the number of bikes has been growing rapidly. At least 10,000 bikes have been added to the streets (of Daxing) since then, and we’ve collected about a third of that total,” she said.

China’s two biggest operators, Ofo and Mobike, have deployed more than 3 million bikes in scores of cities across the country. And the numbers continue to grow.

Mobike aims to expand to 100 cities at home and abroad by the end of this year.

Bike hunters

While many complain the bike-share revolution has taken over city streets, some like Gao Xiaochao are taking matters into their own hands.

Gao is one of many who call themselves bike-share hunters. Bike-share hunters find and report stolen and vandalized bikes that users deliberately park outside their homes or inside gated communities. With some bike-share apps, riders can report illegally parked bikes or other problems the two-wheelers may have.

Gao uses his lunchtime to find, report and move illegally parked bikes.

“Bike hunting is like a game, a hobby, a way to get some exercise. It’s like a new way of living,” Gao said. “Sometimes, I spend two to three hours looking for illegally parked bikes and it’s just like talking a walk.”

Many like Gao are passionate about bike sharing and what it is doing to help transportation and the city’s notoriously smoggy air.

However, as complaints grow and competition gets increasingly cut-throat, they hope companies will do more to improve their service and not just focus on flooding the streets with bikes to edge out competitors.
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Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand sought to distance itself from a Chinese manufacturer that has come under scrutiny after activists investigating labor conditions there were detained, saying the company last made its products three months ago.

In a statement released Wednesday, the brand’s president, Abigail Klem, said Ivanka Trump shoes, which are made by licensing partner Mark Fisher, have not been produced since March at the Huajian Group factory where alleged labor abuses occurred. She added “our licensee works with many footwear production factories and all factories are required to operate within strict social compliance regulations.”

But it is unclear whether that was really the end of the relationship.

Undercover workers

 

China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, began scrutinizing Ivanka Trump supply chains more than a year ago, according to Li Qiang, the group’s executive director. Three China Labor Watch investigators went into Huajian Group factories undercover posing as workers in March, April and May of this year and found Ivanka Trump merchandise inside, Li said.

 

He said the investigators also found evidence of planned production, namely an April production schedule indicating pending orders for nearly 1,000 pairs of Ivanka Trump shoes due by the end of last month.

 

Now all three men are in jail, accused of using illegal recording devices to disrupt Huajian’s business. The U.S. State Department and Amnesty International have spoken out against the arrests. So far, Ivanka Trump and her brand have not.

Two days off a month?

 

China Labor Watch laid out its initial allegations in an April letter to Ivanka Trump. It said workers regularly put in more than 15 hours a day, with just two days off a month. It said most were paid by the piece, taking home just $363 a month for 300 hours of work, and that managers verbally abuse workers.

“China Labor Watch expects you, as an assistant to the president and an advocate for women’s rights, to urge your brand’s supplier factories to improve their conditions,” Li wrote in the letter. “Your words and deeds can make a difference in these factory workers’ lives.”

The Huajian Group says the undercover activists were out to steal trade secrets and denies the allegations of poor working conditions.

Global companies take a hit

Some argue that the arrest of independent monitors threatens to hamper the ability of global companies to adequately monitor their Chinese suppliers. China has rebuffed the State Department’s request to release the activists, saying the men will be dealt with under China’s own sovereign laws.

China has swept up hundreds of human rights lawyers and labor activists in recent years and has scrutinized groups with foreign ties, like China Labor Watch, much more closely.

Alicia Edwards, a State Department spokeswoman, said this week that the U.S. is concerned by “the pattern of arrests and detentions.” Labor activists, she added, are instrumental in helping American companies understand conditions in their supply chains and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese law.

 
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Days before the first supertanker carrying 140,000 tons of Chinese-bound crude oil arrived in Myanmar’s Kyauk Pyu port, local officials confiscated Nyein Aye’s fishing nets.

The 36-year-old fisherman was among hundreds banned from fishing a stretch of water near the entry point for a pipeline that pumps oil 770 kilometers (480 miles) across Myanmar to southwest China and forms a crucial part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” project to deepen its economic links with Asia and beyond.

“How can we make a living if we’re not allowed to catch fish?” said Nyein Aye, who bought a bigger boat just four months ago but now says his income has dropped by two-thirds because of a decreased catch resulting from restrictions on when and where he can fish. Last month he joined more than 100 people in a protest demanding compensation from pipeline operator Petrochina.

The pipeline is part of the nearly $10 billion Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, a scheme at the heart of fast-warming Myanmar-China relations. Its success is crucial for the Southeast Asian nation’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Embattled Suu Kyi needs a big economic win to stem criticism that her first year in office has seen little progress on reform. China’s support is also key to stabilizing their shared border, where a spike in fighting with ethnic armed groups threatens the peace process Suu Kyi says is her top priority.

China’s state-run CITIC Group, the main developer of the Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, says it will create 100,000 jobs in the northwestern state of Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest regions.

Local suspicion

But many local people say the project is being rushed through without consultation or regard for their way of life.

Suspicion of China runs deep in Myanmar, and public hostility due to environmental and other concerns has delayed or derailed Chinese mega-projects in the country in the past.

China says the Kyauk Pyu development is based on “win-win” cooperation between the two countries.

Since Beijing signaled earlier this year that it might abandon the huge Myitsone Dam hydroelectric project in Myanmar, it has pushed for concessions on other strategic undertakings — including the Bay of Bengal port at Kyauk Pyu, which gives it an alternative route for energy imports from the Middle East.

Internal planning documents reviewed by Reuters and more than two dozen interviews with officials show work on contracts and land acquisition began before the completion of studies on the impact on local people and the environment, which legal experts said could breach development laws.

The Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone will cover more than 4,200 acres (17 square kilometers). It includes the $7.3 billion deep sea port and a $2.3 billion industrial park, with plans to attract industries such as textiles and oil refining.

A Reuters tally based on internal planning documents and census data suggests 20,000 villagers, most of whom now depend on agriculture and fishing, are at risk of being relocated to make way for the project.

“There will be a huge project in the zone and many buildings will be built, so people who live in the area will be relocated,” said Than Htut Oo, administrator of Kyauk Pyu, who also sits on the management committee of the economic zone.

He said the government has not publicly announced the plan, because it didn’t want to “create panic” while it was still negotiating with the Chinese developer.

Twin signings

In April, Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw signed two agreements on the pipeline and the Kyauk Pyu port with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as Beijing pushed to revive a project that had stalled since its inception in 2009.

The agreements call for environmental and social assessments to be carried out as soon as possible.

While the studies are expected to take up to 15 months and have not yet started, CITIC has asked Myanmar to finalize contract terms by the end of this year so that the construction can start in 2018, said Soe Win, who leads the Myanmar management committee of the zone.

Such a schedule has alarmed experts who fear the project is being rushed.

“The environmental and social preparations for a project of these dimensions take years to complete and not months,” said Vicky Bowman, head of the Myanmar Center for Responsible Business and a former British ambassador to the country.

CITIC said in an email to Reuters it would engage “a world-renowned consulting firm” to carry out assessments.

Although large-scale land demarcation for the project has not yet started, 26 families have been displaced from farmland because of acquisitions that took place in 2014 for the construction of two dams, according to land documents and the landowners.

Experts say this violates Myanmar’s environmental laws.

“Carrying out land acquisition before completing environmental impact assessments and resettlement plans is incompatible with national law,” said Sean Bain, Myanmar-based legal consultant for the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights watchdog group.

School, development funds

CITIC says it will build a vocational school to provide training for skills needed by companies in the economic zone. It has given $1.5 million to local villages to develop businesses.

Reuters spoke to several villagers who had borrowed small sums from the village funds set up with this money.

“The CITIC money was very useful for us because most people in the village need money,” said fisherman Thar Sai Aung, who borrowed $66 to buy new nets.

Chinese investors say they also plan to spend $1 million during the first five years of the development, and $500,000 per year thereafter to improve local living standards.

But villagers in Kyauk Pyu say they fear the project would not contribute to the development of the area because the operating companies employ mostly Chinese workers.

From more than 3,000 people living on the Maday island, the entry point for the oil pipeline, only 47 have landed a job with the Petrochina, while the number of Chinese workers stood at more than double that number, data from labor authorities showed.

Petrochina did not respond to requests for comment. In a recent report it said Myanmar citizens made up 72 percent of its workforce in the country overall and it would continue to hire locally.

“I don’t think there’s hope for me to get a job at the zone,” said fisherman Nyein Aye. He had been turned down 12 times for job applications with the pipeline operator. “Chinese companies said they would develop our village and improve our livelihoods, but it turned out we are suffering every day.”
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