Monday, July 4, 2016

China Reassesses Loans to Africa after Venezuela Debacle

Bloomberg published on 29 June 2016 an article titled "Venezuela Mess Prods China to Reassess Africa Lending Spree" by Ting Shi. The threat that Venezuela may default on China's loans is putting pressure on Beijing to reassess how it provides money to commodity-dependent nations in Sub-Saharan Africa where China loaned more than $86 billion between 2000 and 2014.

The China Africa Project run by Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden did a half hour podcast on this subject with Matt Ferchen of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. Ferchen is an expert on Chinese loans to Venezuela.