"Developing countries grappling with tidal wave of debt repayments and interest costs owed to China": Report

Sydney [Australia], May 27 (ANI): China is putting growing financial pressure on developing countries, as debt repayments hit record levels. In 2025, these countries are expected to pay USD 35 billion to China, USD 22 billion of that from the world's 75 poorest and most vulnerable nations. Most of these payments are for loans taken under China's Belt and Road Initiative during the 2010s.
Lowy Institute, a think-tank based in Sydney in its report said, "Developing countries are grappling with a tidal wave of debt repayments and interest costs owed to China. Debt service flows to China from developing countries will total USD 35 billion in 2025 and are set to remain elevated for the rest of this decade. The bulk of this debt service, some USD 22 billion, is owed by 75 of the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries."
It added, "Pressure from Chinese state lending, along with surging repayments to a range of international private creditors, is putting enormous financial strain on developing economies. The result is rising debt vulnerability and the crowding out of critical spending priorities such as health, education, poverty reduction, and climate adaptation."
The report further said that China went from being a minor lender in the early 2000s to the largest supplier of new bilateral credit to developing countries by the mid-2010s. At the peak of its Belt and Road Initiative lending surge in 2016, new Chinese state-backed loans totalled more than USD 50 billion, outweighing the combined lending of all Western creditors in that year. China's lending boom was most pronounced in low-income and high-vulnerability countries reliant on loans from bilateral and multilateral creditors and with limited access to international private capital.
"In these economies, China rose from holding less than 5 per cent of external debt in 2005, to more than 40 per cent by 2015. However, shortly thereafter China's global lending entered a period of protracted decline. Rising debt risks, implementation difficulties, and domestic financial pressures saw China's signing of new loans drop to just USD 18 billion in 2019, with further decreases through the Covid pandemic. The largest recipients of new lending include immediate neighbours, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, and developing countries that are critical mineral or battery metal exporters, such as Argentina, Brazil, Congo DR, and Indonesia," the report said.
"The nation that was once the developing world's largest source of new finance has now wholly transitioned to being the world's largest single destination for developing country debt service payments. The Belt and Road Initiative hit its peak in the mid-2010s; peak repayment was reached in the mid-2020s. Now, and for the rest of this decade, China will be more debt collector than banker to the developing world," it added. (ANI)