Category: Economy
Zambia Stands to Benefit From Rising Copper Prices Due to Heightened Chinese Demand
While Zambia tries to figure out how if/how it plans to restructure its $12 billion debt portfolio, government coffers stand to benefit from resurgent copper prices, a major source of export earnings. The price of copper recently ...
Analyst: Zambia Owes More Than Double the $12 Billion to China and Other External Creditors
Zambia owes $27 billion to external creditors rather than the $12 billion figure that is widely circulated in the media, according to Brad Setser's reading of World Bank data on external debt. Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, explained in ...
Chinese Envoy Pushes Back Against U.S. Criticism of Chinese Lending Practices in Africa
China's ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong, took a swipe at U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien's recent accusations that Chinese loans to African governments are predatory. Even though the event where O'Brien made the comments took place ...
Conservation Group Reports “Appalling” Human Rights Violations Aboard Chinese-Owned Fishing Trawlers in Ghana
The London-based conservation group Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) published a damning report on Monday that details "appalling" human rights violations aboard Chinese-owned fishing trawlers that operate in Ghanaian waters. The report details extensive exploitation of local crew members by Chinese managers ...
Nigeria’s Dreams and Nightmares
Earlier this month, the Nigerian opposition politician Peter Obi delivered the 60th Founder’s Day lecture at the University of Nigeria. In his talk he took a swipe at the incumbent government’s handling of the current economic crisis, saying that instead of taking loans from China, Nigeria ...
Bloomberg Asks Zhao Lijian the $4 Billion Dollar Question About Its Zambian Loans: “Will China Opens Its Books?”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian faced questions yesterday by a Bloomberg reporter as to whether Beijing would do more to help alleviate investor concerns over the lack of transparency of China's loans to Zambia. Zhao echoed a brief comment published on ...
New AidData Research Explains Why China Isn’t Fully Participating in the DSSI and Not Interested in Seizing Assets
Bradley Parks, executive director of AidData, discussed the preliminary findings of a new investigation into the terms and conditions of Chinese loan contracts around the world. AidData researchers studied 83 Chinese loan contracts to 21 low-and-middle income countries. The contracts involved the ...
When It Comes to the G20’s DSSI, China’s Playing by a Different Set of Rules
There's an enormous disconnect between how the Chinese are approaching the debt crisis in poor countries and the expectations of the world's legacy donors. People like World Bank President David Malpass seem befuddled as to why China is not fully supporting ...
Zambia Gets an Unexpected Reprieve From Bondholders, But Serious Concerns About the Country’s Debts to China Persist
Zambia's private creditors gave the embattled country an additional three weeks to come up with a plan on how to resolve its burgeoning debt crisis. A group of bondholders would have voted yesterday on whether to accept the finance ministry's request for a 6-month repayment ...
China Finally Commits To “Equal Treatment” for All Zambian Creditors. But Why Did It Take Them So Long to Say So?
China's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, took to his new Twitter account at 8pm local time yesterday in Beijing, to reassure investors and other Zambian stakeholders that the Chinese government supports the principle of "equal treatment" for all creditors. ...
A Rare China-Africa News Interview on Mainstream U.S. Media
It's downright rare that a mainstream U.S. media outlet like CBS covers China-Africa related issues, especially in the run-up to a presidential election. Yesterday, though, the network ran an interview with Grant Harris, CEO of the political risk advisory firm Connect Frontier, who served as a special ...