Updated | Energy guru Shiv Nair is Malta’s consultant on foreign investment
Shiv Nair, consultant who styles himself as ‘China’s secret weapon in Africa’, was in Qatar with energy minister Konrad Mizzi.
A British millionaire resident in Malta with connections to the Chinese government is the Maltese government's consultant on foreign direct investment, MaltaToday has learnt.
Shiv Nair was in Qatar today with energy minister Konrad Mizzi in a meeting with his Qatari counterpart.
In a comment to MaltaToday, Nair was described as a consultant on foreign direct investment, engaged by Malta Enterprise, the government's investment-attraction arm. "Minister Konrad Mizzi is on a pre-planned visit to Qatar aimed at discussing energy-related investments," a government spokesperson said.
Nair's career has been spent working with governments in Africa, the former Soviet Union states, and Latin America, as well as with a host of Chinese government-owned corporations CAMCE, CCECC, Sinopec, China Railways, CETC, China Shipbuilding and Sinoma.
His own company bio describes as having been so successful on behalf of his Chinese clients, "that the Economist magazine once dubbed him 'China's secret weapon in Africa'."
While Nair's link with the Maltese government so far appears as that of a consultant, there is no confirmation as yet of any association with the Chinese government-owned corporations interested in the construction of a bridge connecting Malta to Gozo; and to the company that is tendering for the provision of a 200MW natural gas power station at Delimara.
The Delimara tenderer is CPECC (China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation), a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The Chinese company interested in the Gozo bridge project is CCCC (China Communications Construction).
Nair has private interests in oil exploration, mining, agriculture and logistics and in Malta forms part of the management team of La Vallette Corporation, a major firm that deals in trade, security logistics and energy consultancy.
His other firms include British Borneo Holdings, a mini-conglomerate headquartered in Malta which includes subsidiaries Premium Borneo Communications Ltd, a telecommunications firm; British Borneo, which deals in oil exploration, Bureau Securitas, which deals with security advisory, and Lone Star, which provides logistic services in extreme conditions in developing countries or during natural disasters.





