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What’s Driving the Steady Decline in Chinese Overseas Development Lending?

by Eric Olander

There was a time when Chinese lending to developing countries rivaled the World Bank. Those days are now long gone as Chinese overseas development lending has been on a steady downward trajectory.

New data from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center (GDPC) reports that in 2020-2021, China granted just 28 loan commitments worth just $10.5 billion — a small fraction of what was lent in the early 2010s.

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