Lender’s remorse? China finds Africa projects require a growing wave of debt forgiveness
- From Kenya to Ethiopia, Botswana to Cameroon, belt and road developments have seen write-offs of hundreds of millions of dollars
- African nations have problems making repayments, which report says raises ‘legitimate concerns about the sustainability of China’s outbound lending’
Perhaps yielding to growing criticism over its lending practices in Africa, China is writing off or restructuring debt for an increasing number of African countries in financial distress.
China’s embassy in Kenya said that Beijing was ready to help heavily indebted African countries ease their debt burdens.
“If some African countries encounter difficulties to repay Chinese loans, we will have bilateral consultations with them and take flexible measures according to international practice and market principles,” the embassy said.
Beijing dismisses the claims as groundless, saying that no country faces a crisis because of its cooperation with China.
Embassy spokeswoman Huang Xueqing said some countries may face difficulties in repaying their debts but noted that each country’s situation was different, the causes were complicated and involved many factors and different parties.