Chinese Financing to Latin America Fell to Zero in 2020, Providing a Cautionary Tale For Africa and Other Developing Regions

There’s new evidence of the dramatic plunge in Chinese overseas development finance. Researchers in the United States found that for the first time in more than a decade, China’s two largest policy banks, the China Development Bank and the China Exim Bank, did not lend any money for projects in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

Lending will likely never return to pre-pandemic levels, concluded the authors of a new report on the issue published The Dialogue and Boston University’s Global Policy Development Center. And the reasons for the curtailment of loans to Latin America overlap with what’s happening in Africa.

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