this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
250 points (97.7% liked)

World News

38554 readers
2654 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Country, estimated to be owed up to $1.5trn, is increasing penalties for late payments and cutting back on infrastructure projects

China has become the world’s biggest debt collector, as the money it is owed from developing countries has surged to between $1.1tn (£889bn) and $1.5tn, according to a new report. An estimated 80% of China’s overseas lending portfolio in the global south is now supporting countries in financial distress.

Since 2017, China has been the world’s biggest bilateral lender; its main development banks issued nearly $500bn between 2008 and 2021. While some of this predates the belt and road initiative (BRI), Beijing’s flagship development programme has mobilised much of the investment in developing countries.

But a new report by researchers at the AidData research lab at William & Mary, a public university in Virginia, found that China, the world’s second largest economy, is now navigating the role of international debt collector as well as being a bilateral funder of major infrastructure projects.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hanekam@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

The TB one for instance found that TB gets worse whenever there is an IMF loan but not in the same circumstances when there is a loan from somewhere else.

Yes, because the countries taking those loans aren't distressed.

There is a reason China’s loans are so popular.

They are popular because they come with very little oversight. Countries with higher transparency do not find them very appealing, as Italy's recent withdrawal from the program attests.

You don’t seem to realize that IMF loan conditions have very specific governance requirements which directly impact governmental decisions around health spending.

They come with very specific governance requirements which impact governmental decisions about a whole host of things, because those governments have proven incapable of sound fiscal management.

Again, the IMF is in no way perfect and I'm sure there is a myriad ways the conditions of their loans can be tailored to minimize negative outcomes. But that does not mean they cause these problems any more than every cancer death being a failure of medicine means doctors cause cancer.