By 
In response to Yellen’s comments, the Chinese embassy in Lusaka said on its website: “The biggest contribution that the US can make to the debt issues outside the country is to act on responsible monetary policies, cope with its own debt problem, and stop sabotaging other sovereign countries’ active efforts to solve their debt issues”.
US national debt is about $31-trillion, a figure that has skyrocketed from $5.6-trillion since 2000 thanks in part to increased spending for an ageing population, outlays for Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Covid-19 programmes and tax cuts that trimmed revenues, Reuters reports.
Zambia became Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign defaulter in 2020, and since then has been struggling to revamp external debt that topped $17bn, more than a third of which is held by Chinese creditors.
The world’s poorest countries faced $35bn in debt-service payments to official and private sector creditors in 2022, more than 40% of which was due to China, the World Bank said.
The US Federal Reserve’s rate increases, designed to tame inflation at home, and the appreciating dollar have added to African countries’ debt service burden, the African Development Bank said last week.
With Reuters
Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Comments