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There was a time when most African governments viewed China as an alternative to cheap, unconditional loans, and China took advantage to position itself as a preferred lender when African countries turned to China for loans they couldn’t get from. traditional western moneylenders. .
Data collected and processed by the School of Advanced International Studies, China Africa Research Initiative (SAIS-CARI) at the Boston University Center for Global Development Policy shows that in 19 years, Chinese loans to African countries have amounted to $ 153 billion.
SAIS-CARI estimated that between 2000 and 2019, Chinese financiers signed 1,141 loan commitments worth $ 153 billion with African governments and their state-owned companies. However, he clarifies that the figures are not equivalent to the debt of the African government, as the database does not track disbursements or repayments.
To put this in some context, while Africa exported $ 6 billion worth of raw coffee in 2014, after processing, marking and packaging the final product sold abroad for $ 100 billion.
The same goes for cocoa. While Africa produces about 75 percent of the world’s cocoa, the continent only gets 2 percent of the $ 100 billion revenue from the chocolate industry.
However, China has reduced its loans to African countries. According to new data released by SAIS-CARI, in 2019, loans fell 30 percent to $ 7 billion, up from $ 9.9 billion in 2018.
Data sources include official government documents, contractor websites, fieldwork, interviews, and the media. 
sources.
The database includes all loans from mainland China to Africa, which can come from a variety of sources, including: Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM); The two Chinese political banks: the Export-Import Bank of China (Eximbank) and the China Development Bank (CDB); Chinese private / commercial banks: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank (CCB), Bank of China (BoC), China CITIC, Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), China Merchant Bank (CMB), etc. ; Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or private companies that provide supplier credit or investment loan financing; People’s Bank of China: The central bank of China, which is a relatively new lender in Africa compared to Chinese political banks, the researchers noted.
The Boston University Center for Global Development Policy has been managing the Africa database since March 29, 2021.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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