China and African Debt Repayment

 Panda Paw Dragon Claw posted on 11 January 2021 an analysis titled "Debt Repayment Issues in Highly-indebted BRI Countries: Risks and Opportunities in the New Year" by Christoph Nedopil and Mengdi Yue.  

China has become the world's largest bilateral creditor.  China still lacks a published strategy to deal with the debt issue holistically and together with other creditors.  This analysis identifies ten countries that have become especially vulnerable because they must pay 25 percent to 75 percent of their total debt service to China between 2021 and 2024.  Four of the ten are in Africa: Djibouti, Republic of Congo, Angola, and Comoros.  

China and African Debt

The New York Times published on 23 November 2018 an article titled "One African Nation Put the Brakes on Chinese Debt. But Not for Long." by Dionne Searcey and Yaya Barry.

The article looks at Africa's growing debt crisis and the role played by Chinese loans.

China's Economic Slowdown to Impact Africa

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a UK-based think tank, published a paper in September 2014 titled "Developing Countries and the Slowdown in China" by Judith Tyson, Jane Kennan, and Zhenbo Hou. 

The report notes that the IMF and OECD forecast a slowdown in China's gross domestic product (GDP) to 7.0 percent for 2015.  ODI estimates a slowdown towards 5 percent in GDP growth from 2015 if decisive policy action is taken and below 4 percent if it is not. 

The African countries most negatively affected will be those with relatively high exports to China by value as a percent of total exports.  African countries that export 10 percent or more of total exports by value to China include Mauritania, Zambia, Congo Republic, Cameroon, Gambia, Benin, and Ethiopia.