Category: Finance

Recent findings by Boston University's Global Development Policy Center that China's two largest policy banks, China Exim Bank and the China Development Bank, sharply curtailed their lending from $75 billion in 2016 to just $4 billion, was a stunning surprise. Long ...

Findings from Boston University's new database on Chinese development finance patterns that revealed a "collapse" of overseas lending sparked a lot of conversation online yesterday from leading development economists in the U.S. and Europe. The general consensus among the experts was ...

The following is a transcript of a nine-part Twitter thread posted by the prominent China economist Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University. As I have been writing since 2011, China’s development lending was always likely to follow the ...

The Chinese government is reportedly coming to the rescue of the financially stressed Iraqi government with a $2 billion cash payment for a year's worth of oil at current market prices. The five-year agreement, as reported by Bloomberg, provides fresh insights into how China ...

The Financial Times today cited new work by scholars at Boston University on the global reduction of Chinese lending. The big story is that while Chinese lending rivaled that of the World Bank by the mid-2010s, it's now plummeting.

South African President and Chair of the African Union Cyril Ramaphosa issued yet another urgent appeal for the international community to provide immediate debt relief for Africa. "Urgent and collective action is needed there to stave off that crisis and to maintain the invaluable social gains that ...

This week saw yet another African leader (this time my own president, Cyril Ramaphosa,) calling for international measures to soften the current debt crisis confronting poor countries in Africa and beyond. None of these measures are outrageous. Considering that seven out of the top 10 fastest-growing economies ...

Chinese infrastructure lending to African countries is widely expected to slow over the next 1-2 years amid mounting debt sustainability concerns, according to analysts interviewed by the South China Morning Post. This would mark a dramatic change over the past twenty years when Beijing emerged ...

Michael Pettis is one of the world's foremost China economists. He shared a few insights this weekend on the current trend of reduced Chinese lending to developing countries. In a three-part thread published on Twitter, the Peking University professor said Beijing's ...

The last few weeks have been marked by a pervasive gloominess about Africa's future.  As Zambia was defaulting on its Eurobond debt, the G20 was praising itself effusively for coming up with a debt response unlikely ...

Over the past 20 years China has played a pivotal, arguably indispensable role in Africa's economic development. China is by far Africa's largest bilateral trading partner, a major source of foreign investment and a vital player in helping Africa to close ...

The Kenyan Treasury is reportedly considering a new plan to approach its creditors to ask for outright cancellation of some of its debt, according to a report in Business Daily. Although a final decision has yet to be made, the Treasury is apparently considering ...