(This March. 1 story has been corrected to fix source of Li’s comments to State Council, not State Department, in paragraph 3)
BEIJING (Reuters) – China is willing to “constructively” participate in solving the debt problems of relevant countries under a multilateral framework, its Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.
China, the world’s largest bilateral creditor, has criticised multilateral lenders for not accepting losses, or haircuts, on loans to low-income countries while Beijing is being asked to do so on credit it has extended on its own.
In a phone call with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Li said that solving the debt problems of low-income countries requires the participation of all creditors, according to a State Council, or cabinet, statement.
China urged Group of 20 nations last month to conduct a fair, objective and in-depth analysis of the causes of global debt problems as calls mount for lenders to help debt-laden poor countries by accepting large losses on their loans.
China is a major lender to high-debt countries, such as Ghana and Zambia.
Zambia owed Beijing nearly $6 billion out of a total external debt of $17 billion at the end of 2021, according to government data, while Ghana owes China $1.7 billion, according to the International Institute of Finance, a financial services trade association focused on emerging markets.
(Reporting by Meg Shen and Ryan Woo; Ediing by Tomasz Janowski)
