China-Africa relations: IMF report says Chinese loans are not main debt burden in sub-Saharan region
- Beijing the largest bilateral official lender to countries in Africa but share in sub-Saharan overall sovereign debt still relatively small, according to report
- IMF is distancing itself from US ‘debt trap diplomacy’ theory along with new American narrative China’s economy is on brink of collapse, says analyst

China’s share of the total sub-Saharan Africa external public debt rose from less than 2 per cent before 2005 to about 17 per cent – or US$134 billion – in 2021, according to the IMF. The World Bank’s International Debt Report said sub-Saharan Africa’s total external debt stood at US$790 billion in 2021, a figure that more than doubled in about a decade.
But China’s share in sub-Saharan Africa’s overall sovereign debt, or public debt, was still relatively small – about 6 per cent of the total – the IMF said.
“It is noteworthy that the debt owed to China has not been the principal contributor to the region’s public debt surge in the past 15 years,” the IMF said in a side report about sub-Saharan Africa’s economic relations with China that it released early this month.
Some 60.9 per cent of the region’s public debt is now domestic commercial borrowing with higher interest rates and shorter maturity, while multilateral lenders hold 13.7 per cent of the debt.
China has denied the debt trap allegations. Instead, it has pointed the finger at multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors which account for more than 80 per cent of sovereign debt for developing countries.