
Rwanda’s Finance Minister Uzziel Ndagijimana and Chinese ambassador Rao Hongwei announced on Friday that Beijing would forgive $6 million of debt and provide a new $60 million grant to the government in Kigali as part of COVID-19 relief efforts.
If the debt forgiveness portion of the announcement sounds modest, it’s because Rwanda doesn’t actually borrow that much from China. Chinese loans account for less than 5% of the country’s outstanding debt stock, according to the Ministry of Finance in Kigali.