Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Two-in-One: A Borrower & A Lender

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Last March, we had wondered about the quantum of Chinese ODA and come across an intresting paradox -- even while continuing to receive concessional lending from multilateral institutions, China itself had become a big lender & ODA player, globally.

At the time, the actual volume of lending was not revealed even by visiting Chinese academics, but now, the Financial Times has come up with some dramatic figures. According to its `China Special` report published yesterday, `China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank signed loans of at least $110bn (£70bn) to other developing country governments and companies in 2009 and 2010, according to Financial Times research. The equivalent arms of the World Bank made loan commitments of $100.3bn from mid-2008 to mid-2010`.

If one assumes that the `equivalent arms of WB` here refers to IBRD and IDA, it would be interesting to know what the bank thinks of its customer who is a bigger lender!

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LINKS
  • China`s Lending Hits New Heights (FT 17 Jan., 2011) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/488c60f4-2281-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a.html#axzz1BXYaHP4s
  • A Strategy to Straddle the Planet (FT 17 Jan, 2011) - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b852a826-2272-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html#axzz1BXYaHP4s
    (Excerpt - One Indian executive reflects that his country ships plastic pellets to China that are then made into buckets. If India cannot even make plastic buckets competitively, he implies, its battle will be tough.)

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