{"id":22369,"date":"2023-11-08T02:25:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T02:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/china-is-owed-over-1tr-in-belt-and-road-debt-report\/"},"modified":"2023-11-08T02:25:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T02:25:06","slug":"china-is-owed-over-1tr-in-belt-and-road-debt-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/china-is-owed-over-1tr-in-belt-and-road-debt-report\/","title":{"rendered":"China is owed over $1tr in Belt and Road debt: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>BEIJING: China is owed more than a trillion dollars through its Belt and Road project, making it the biggest debt collector in the world, a report said this week, with an estimated 80 per cent of the loans supporting countries in financial distress.<\/p>\n<p>Beijing says upwards of 150 countries stretching from Uruguay to Sri Lanka have signed up to the BRI, a vast global infrastructure push unveiled by President Xi Jinping a decade ago.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1744737\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The first decade of the initiative saw China distribute huge loans to fund the construction of bridges, ports and highways in low and middle-income countries.<\/p>\n<p>But much more than half of those loans have now entered their principal repayment period, said a <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aiddata.org\/publications\/belt-and-road-reboot\">report<\/a> released on Monday by AidData, a research institute tracking development finance at Virginia\u2019s College of William and Mary.<\/p>\n<p>That figure is set to hit 75 per cent by the end of the decade, it added.<\/p>\n<p>Crunching data compiled on Chinese financing of almost 21,000 projects across 165 countries, AidData said Beijing had now committed aid and credit \u201chovering around $80bn a year\u201d to low and middle-income nations.<\/p>\n<p>The United States, in contrast, has provided $60n to such countries a year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeijing is navigating an unfamiliar and uncomfortable role \u2014 as the world\u2019s largest official debt collector,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTotal outstanding debt \u2014 including principal but excluding interest \u2014 from borrowers in the developing world to China is at least $1.1 trillion,\u201d AidData said.<\/p>\n<p>AidData, it added, \u201cestimates that 80pc of China\u2019s overseas lending portfolio in the developing world is currently supporting countries in financial distress\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Proponents of the BRI praise it for bringing resources and economic growth to the Global South.<\/p>\n<p>But critics have long pointed to opaque pricing for projects built by Chinese companies, with countries including Malaysia and Myanmar renegotiating deals to bring down costs.<\/p>\n<p>And AidData said China has in recent years suffered reputational damage among developing countries, with its approval rating falling from 56pc in 2019 to 40pc in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>But China is \u201clearning from its mistakes and becoming an increasingly adept crisis manager\u201d, the study said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1781372\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Beijing is seeking to de-risk the BRI by bringing its lending practices more in line with international standards, it stressed.<\/p>\n<p>But also among those methods are \u201cincreasingly stringent safeguards to shield itself from the risk of not being repaid\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n<p>That includes allowing key BRI lenders to pay themselves principal and interest due by \u201cunilaterally sweeping\u201d borrowers\u2019 foreign currency reserves held in escrow.<\/p>\n<p><em>Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIJING: China is owed more than a trillion dollars through its Belt and Road project, making it the biggest debt collector in the world, a report said this week, with an estimated 80 per cent of the loans supporting countries in financial distress. Beijing says upwards of 150 countries stretching from Uruguay to Sri Lanka [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/08072116c1a1fde.jpg?r=072128","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}