Category: Loans
Editorial: Nairobi Expressway Toll Deal With Chinese Contractor Risks Creating Another “White Elephant”
The Business Daily Editorial Board warned the government that the proposed toll road pricing scheme for the new 27km Nairobi Expressway jeopardizes the financial stability of the project and risks creating another "white elephant" like the embattled Standard Gauge Railway. The ...
Everybody Seems to Agree That Chinese Overseas Lending is Decreasing… But By How Much?
Analysts Agatha Kratz and Matthew Mingey from the China-focused research firm Rhodium Group challenged the findings of a controversial dataset produced by Boston University's Global Policy Development Center. While Kratz and Mingey agree that lending by China's two major policy banks, the China ...
Ambassador Zhou Pingjian: China’s Tried Its Best to Meet Kenya’s Request on Loans
The Nation's Senior Diplomatic Writer, Aggrey Mutambo, sat down with China's ambassador to Kenya for a wide-ranging interview that covered access to Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, next year's FOCAC summit in Dakar, and how Beijing will deal with Nairobi's difficulty in repaying its debts.
Report: China Lacks Comprehensive Debt Relief Strategy
A new report by the International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) at the Central University of Economics and Finance in Beijing appears to echo some of the same themes that emerged from Boston University's Overseas Chinese Lending Database, specifically related to an apparent sharp decline ...
New Database Provides Fresh Insights Into Chinese Lending Practices Around the World
Yesterday's Financial Times headline that "China's overseas lending collapses" dominated the news about Boston University's pioneering new database that tracks lending by two of China's largest policy banks, China Exim Bank and the China Development Bank.
Reaction to New Data That Reveals “Chinese Overseas Lending Collapse”
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 ...
Peking University Professor: Chinese Loan Losses in Asia and Africa Reinforce Painful Lessons Learned in Venezuela
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 ...
China and the Dirty Secrets of ‘National Development’
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.
Kenya’s President Doesn’t Want to Hear Any Lectures From U.S., EU-Led Donors As Country Restructures Its Debt
President Uhuru Kenyatta warned international development agencies, and the U.S. and Europe on Friday against using Kenya's current debt crisis as a pretext to lecture the country and interfere in its affairs. "Please, I ask you to refrain from interfering, telling ...
Analysts: China to Cut Back Lending to Africa in the Post-COVID-19-Era
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 ...
China’s Curtailment of Loans to Developing Countries Was Expected, Says Economist Michael Pettis
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 ...
Kenya Treasury Secretary: “We Don’t Want to Give the Impression We Are Straining in Any Way”
The alarming headlines in today's Kenyan newspapers about the country's apparent inability to repay some of its debts contrasts sharply with the message conveyed by Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury Ukur Yatani in an interview with Bloomberg's Africa bureau chief David Malingha: