Chinese overseas development finance is unrecognizable from what it was just a few years ago. After suffering tens of billions of dollars in losses, Chinese lenders have moved to de-risk their lending to countries in Africa, Asia, and across the Global South. Instead of those once massive bilateral loans from the two main policy banks in Beijing, Chinese lending now encompasses a much more diverse array of actors, particularly in Africa.

This new approach was on full display last month when Kenya closed a deal with a consortium of Chinese stakeholders to finance the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway from the current terminus in the Rift Valley to the Ugandan border. A third of the cost to build the new railway will be paid for by the Kenyan government, around another third will be comprised of a consortium of Chinese investors, and the rest will be financed with loans from the China Exim Bank.

Yunan Chen, a research fellow at ODI Global in London, and Teal Emery, an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington, D.C., join Eric & Cobus to discuss their new report, which breaks down the latest trends in Chinese development finance, and to explain why the deal in Kenya should serve as a case study for other African borrowers.

Show Notes:

• ODI Global: Greener on the other side? — Mapping China’s overseas co-financing and financial innovation by Yunnan Chen and Teal Emery
• ODI Global: China’s creditor diversification in Africa: impacts and challenges of infrastructure debt-financing by Chinese commercial creditors by Yunnan Chen and Tianyi Wu
• South China Morning Post: After delay, new Chinese funding plan will help extend railway to Uganda, Kenya says by Jevans Nyabiage

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