U.S. City Seeks Chinese Labor & Expertise To Rebuild After Katrina

"Frustration over the pace of rebuilding is rampant along the Mississippi Gulf Coast some 10 months after Hurricane Katrina. But in the small city of D'Iberville, leaders are hoping to jump-start construction with an unorthodox solution: importing hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of Chinese laborers to build shopping malls, condominiums and casinos...

The firms, which plan to partner with private developers in the U.S., have proposed using Chinese materials. That way, they can avoid paying higher post-Katrina prices for American materials...The Chinese also hope to ship over their own workers — who would be subject to American labor laws but paid less than what domestic workers typically demand. The Chinese laborers would live in temporary housing, staffing round-the-clock construction shifts, Chen said. When the projects were finished, they would return home...

The two Chinese construction firms recently were ranked among the dozen largest builders in that nation [and] each is partially owned by the Chinese government."