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Analyst: Nigeria on the Cusp of a Debt Crisis, But Loans From China Not to Blame

by Eric Olander

The Nigerian Debt Management Office on Monday revealed that it has $5.8 billion of borrowed money on its books that it hasn’t disbursed. This prompted new worries among some financial analysts that the actual debt-to-GDP ratio has surpassed 100%, meaning that the country has taken on so much debt that it now needs to borrow more just to service those loans.

But the $8.4 billion in project-tied concessional loans from China is not the problem, according to Nnamdi Nwizu, Co-Managing Partner at Commercio Partner in an interview on CNBC Africa yesterday. Those concessional loans from the Chinese and multilateral lenders are much better than costlier Eurobond debt, he added.

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