It comes amid concerns that certain nations, including Ghana and Zambia, are having difficulty paying back their loans to Beijing…Asian Lite News reports
According to a media source, World Bank President David Malpass expressed alarm about some of the loans China has been providing to poor nations in Africa.
The terms and conditions need to be “more transparent,” according to David Malpass.
According to the BBC, there are concerns that certain nations, including Ghana and Zambia, are having difficulty paying back their loans to Beijing.
According to China, all such financing complies with international laws.
Developing nations often take out loans from foreign countries or multilateral organizations to fund economic growth-oriented industries like infrastructure, education, and agriculture.
However, since a large portion of that borrowing is done in foreign currencies like US dollars or euros, BBC noted that substantial hikes in interest rates in the US and other major nations over the previous year are making loan repayments more costly.
For emerging countries, where it might be difficult to get the additional funds needed when the relative value of their own currency declines, it is an especially severe challenge.
According to Malpass, it is a “double whammy and it means that (economic) growth is going to be slower.”
One of the major goals of US Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to three African nations this week was to address that dilemma and its repercussions. With the visit come significant financial pledges to Tanzania and Ghana.
China, whose richness of natural resources includes the metals, such as nickel, essential for the batteries required for technologies such as electric automobiles, is a challenger for influence in the continent that is booming.