At a press conference on Monday, April 10, 2023, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, urged the United States to redouble its efforts to resolve the debt of African countries. China, often accused of being “an obstacle to African debt relief”, denounces “a trap set by certain Western politicians to disrupt and undermine China’s cooperation with developing countries”. These statements come following a series of visits to Africa by senior Biden administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
At the end of 2018, Africa’s external debt was estimated at over $750 billion. And, it was held by four groups of creditors (China, the Paris Club of which the United States is a member, the IMF and the World Bank and Private Investors. The question of its cancellation has often arisen, but this This debt still persists and stands the test of time, and it imposed itself with great acquittal during the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to information, the African debt was formed from the 1960s with the wave of independence of the countries of the continent. Moreover, for some countries like Mauritania, this debt was simply bequeathed by the colonial powers. France would have bequeathed to Mauritania a debt of 66 million dollars.
In the 1970s, this debt increased with the “loans at low rates (between 2 and 3%)” granted to the countries of the continent by the World Bank. And the various structural adjustment policies put in place to avoid payment defaults have changed almost nothing. Africa is still crippled with debt. And, China and the United States hold very large shares of this debt which weighs enormously on the economies of the countries of the continent. Unfortunately, these two giants of the world economy are in a showdown that does not facilitate the relief of this African debt.
Mamadou Baïlo Keïta for Guineematin.com
