Category: Finance
China’s Largest Commercial Bank Says It Plans to Phase Out Financing Coal Projects
The chief economist at China's largest bank, the International Commercial Bank of China, and one of the world's largest financiers of fossil fuel projects said the bank will begin to phase out support for coal power projects. Zhou Yueqiu told a ...
B3W vs. BRI
Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) richest democracies unveiled a highly-anticipated plan over the weekend for how they intend to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative and stem Beijing's growing influence in Africa and other developing regions. The ...
Nigeria Gives Up on Chinese Lenders to Finance Two Railway Projects, Talks With Standard Chartered Now Underway
The slowdown in Chinese infrastructure development lending in Africa is on vivid display in Nigeria, where the country's Transportation Minister acknowledged that he's no longer counting on Beijing to finance a pair of multi-billion railway projects, according to a Bloomberg report. ...
A 2021 Update On What We Know About Chinese Lending to African Countries
There's ample evidence of a sharp decline in Chinese lending to developing countries, specifically in Africa. But that doesn't mean that China is out of the development financing game altogether. Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Program at Carnegie Endowment for ...
OPay Seeks to Raise $400 Million For Expansion Signaling Chinese VCs May Be Ready to Return to Africa
The Chinese-backed African fintech platform OPay is reportedly in talks with investors to raise as much as $400 million at a valuation of more than $1.5 billion, according to a report in The Information. That valuation, by the way, is three times higher than the ...
Who is the Bigger Official Lender in Africa: China or the World Bank?
In an oft-cited 2019 working paper titled “China’s Overseas Lending,” we read that China has become the world’s “largest official creditor, easily surpassing the IMF or the World Bank…” Is this true in Africa (All references to Africa in this article refer to all of Africa, ...
China Backs Reallocation of IMF Funds to African Countries
China answered France's call to support the reallocation of billions of IMF funds that will come from an issuance of $650 billion in new Special Drawing Rights, according to a Foreign Ministry summary of remarks made by Vice Premier Han Zheng at this week's Franco-African ...
Ghana President Akufo-Addo Calls For the Cancellation of All African Debts
Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo issued an urgent call for immediate economic relief, including the total cancellation of all debts owed by African countries, during his address on Tuesday at the Summit on Financing African Economies. Without the ‘fiscal room to breathe,’ Africa could truly become ‘the forgotten continent, ...
So, What Exactly Did Emmanuel Macron Accomplish With His African Finance Summit? Nothing Substantive.
The day-long Summit on the Financing of African Economies wrapped up in Paris on Tuesday and left a lot of people scratching their heads wondering what exactly was the purpose of the gathering. Unlike Monday's event that focused on Sudanese debt ...
South African Telco CEO Ralph Mupita is Looking to China For Both Ideas and Cash
Ralph Mupita, head of the largest pan-African telecom group MTN, wants his South Africa-based telco to draw inspiration and attract more investment from China. On the investment side, Mupita recently partnered with the Chinese state-back Silk Road Fund that funnels ...
The DRC Wants to Renegotiate Some of Its Chinese Contracts. Hopefully, for Their Sake, They Read the Fine Print.
DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi apparently wants to renegotiate some of the contracts that his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, signed with the Chinese, according to a report by Africa Intelligence. Argentina too, like the DRC, tried to ...
As Zambia’s Presidential Election Campaign Heats Up, China Isn’t an Issue…Yet
Zambia's presidential election campaign is now shifting into high gear following last weekend's nomination of President Edgar Lungu as the ruling Patriotic Front's candidate. Meantime, the country's main opposition leader, the United Party for National Development's Hakainde Hichilema (photo), indicated that he's ...