WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG – Zambia’s finance minister said on Saturday it is still unclear who will be leading talks for renegotiating its nearly $6 billion debt with China, the largest bilateral creditor of the first African sovereign default in 2020 after the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
China co-chairs a committee of official bilateral creditors with France as part of a debt restructuring that Zambia is seeking under the Group of 20’s Common Framework, a platform for highly indebted countries to rework their debt with bilateral creditors.
“It is up to the Chinese authorities to choose who they want to represent them,” Situmbeko Musokotwane said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.
“I don’t know at this particular moment,” he said, when asked who represents China on the official creditors committee.
Western countries last week ratcheted up their criticism of China, the world’s largest bilateral creditor, as the main obstacle to moving ahead with debt restructuring agreements for the growing number of countries unable to service their debts.
At the end of 2021, China held about a third of Zambia’s $17.27 billion international debt, according to Zambian government data. Since then, Zambia has cancelled $2 billion in undisbursed loans, many from Chinese lenders.
Musokotwane said negotiating with bilateral creditors including China before private creditors had “worked fairly well,” but admitted there had been complaints from international investors who hold the country’s sovereign bonds.
“It cannot be plain sailing because people approach it from different perspectives,” he added. – REUTERS.
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