Dettes : la Zambie, le FMI et la Chine
RWR Belt and Road Monitor: Feb 23
The Zambian Cabinet approved a plan to restructure Chinese loans after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rejected a $1.3 billion loan request on February 16, warning of debt sustainability concerns. Instead of continuing to borrow directly from Chinese companies, Zambia seeks to instead borrow from China’s government, as government bilateral loans tend to offer lower interest rates and longer repayment schedules than commercial loans. Zambia's Ministry of Finance had been seeking as much as $8 billion in additional financing from China as recently as June 2017. If approved, Zambian public debt would have grown from $7.6 billion to over $17.2 billion, an amount close to the country's $21.2 billion total GDP. The situation can be viewed as the latest example of a resource-dependent country that has taken on significant Chinese debt, struggling under fluctuating commodity prices and fiscal mismanagement.
