Now this is interesting >>>> Financial Times: US to match Chinese terms for train order

[Pirate Smile]

US to match Chinese terms for train order
By Robin Harding in Washington

Published: January 12 2011 02:10 | Last updated: January 12 2011 02:10

The US is going to match Chinese terms with cut-price export financing for the first time to help General Electric win an order for 150 diesel-electric locomotives from Pakistan.
With Hu Jintao, China’s president, due in Washington next week, the move suggests Barack Obama, US president, will continue to push China to follow global standards on trade.
“We’d rather that you play by the rules, but if you’re not going to play by the rules, then we’ll meet you,” Fred Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, told the Financial Times.

Ex-Im Bank hopes its willingness to match China Eximbank will encourage US exporters to fight for contracts even when China’s financing terms seem unbeatable. It will finance $437m of the $477m deal, which is awaiting approval by a Pakistani court, but it will have to go against international rules to match the Chinese offer.
The rules, managed by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, limit the term of export credits to 10 years.
China, which is not a signatory to the OECD agreement, offered to finance locomotives for Pakistan over 12 years

-snip-
A formula set by the OECD would require a minimum fee of about 21 per cent for a 12-year export credit to Pakistan. The fee, which reflects credit risk, can be paid up front or over the life of the loan. It comes on top of interest, set as the medium-term Treasury yield plus 100 basis points.
China Eximbank proposed a fee of about 8 per cent and the US Ex-Im Bank agreed to match it. Mr Hochberg said he could act in this case because unusually, there was evidence of the Chinese offer.

-snip-
The US has two big high-technology makers of diesel electric locomotives in GE and Electro-Motive Diesel, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, but Chinese companies are competing aggressively in international markets.
The GE locomotives would be built in Erie, Pennsylvania, making them an example of how Mr Obama would like to use exports to help the US recovery.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/641815b4-1de7-11e0-badd-00144feab49a.html#axzz1AnJk5spb

[LeftyAndProud60]

1. Is this good or bad? Should I be outraged? NT

[Pirate Smile]

2. It seems kinda awesome but I'm sure some people will say we should just follow the rules and let

China clean our clock by their not following the rules.

Our people need jobs too.

I'd say President Obama just put China on notice.

[patrice]

3. Don't think it would make much sense for this kind of thing to be a single isolated incident.

Perhaps at first, to see how the financing works, but then maybe later, other similarly proactive moves to do things about our trade disadvantages?

I hope.

[golfguru]

4. When I worked for a large machine tool builder

we lost many orders to Japanese firms because gov't of Japan
offered low interest rates no one could match in US.

Yet US Gov't did not even try to balance the field by imposing
restrictions on Japanese machinery imports.

[midnight]

5. Something intersting about solar powered rail....

The Solar Bullet train if built – if I understand this whole concept correctly – is poised to be a panacea if you will, for not only high-speed land-based transport, but with respect to its own energy requirements and energy supply to ancillary entities.
The way it would work is like this. Light from the greenest source of energy there is – the sun – would be collected by photovoltaic solar panels mounted atop the high-speed rail line proposed – in this case to run between Phoenix and Tucson with possible planned later extensions to Las Vegas and Los Angeles – and fed not only to power the trains themselves but also to electricity consumers elsewhere.
Teresa Henry of Printed Electronics World in “Solar powered bullet train more than a dream,” wrote that the system concept is still in its infancy and is “to both generate electricity for nearby communities as well as the power needed for the transit vehicles. The initial focus is on solving local commuter problems in and out of major cities with extensions to the system, which will lead to high-speed passenger connections between Phoenix, Tucson, and other major cities.”
Could this work? According to information on the solarbullet.com website, “We look for this innovative concept and our application of our new ‘MotionSolar’ energy storage and control methodology to give Arizona, Nevada and California a tourism, employment and technological edge in the future. With a target price of $20 - $40 Million a mile it would give us a system with the technology and features we need today with a cost we can handle.”
Imagine trains traveling at speeds up to 220 mph, using power supplied from overhead photovoltaic panels, with absolutely no need for fossil fuels whatsoever, traveling the 116 miles between Phoenix and Tucson, for instance, in half an hour, comfortably, reliably and safely. Sound appealing? Not only this, but the cost to build such a train network is estimated to be $27 billion.
“The southwest has some of the broadest coverage area of high density solar exposure in the nation,” information on the solarbullet.com website indicated. “A system design that uses solar power as the primary energy source simply makes sense. Modular manufacturing technology matched with integrated aerospace technology makes available these features.”
Is this to be the first true high-speed rail line built anywhere in the U.S.? What I can and am happy to say is that the American high-speed rail race seems to be in high gear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind excitement about trains in my entire life!http://www.fastrailconnectus.com/journal_environmental_benefits.php?action=view_comments&journal_id=139&type=

[JCMach1]

6. GE builds the best diesel trains in the world bar none... they completely revamped the engines from

top to bottom in recent years. The only way the Chinese can compete with this is through unfair practices.

[Kdillard]

7. Very interesting.

[Pirate Smile]

8. kick

[treestar]

9. Hoping this is good news in that finally we can undercut the

Chinese at something.

I was reading in the Nation about how even the maquiladoras on the US/Mexico border were losing jobs to the Chinese.