Gallagher Recounts Billions in China Lending

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Kevin Gallagher, Associate Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, said that China had lent billions to Africa and Latin America.

The information was used to provide context in an April 30 article on the international finance blog Seeking Alpha entitled, “China: Lender of First (and Last) Resort.”

From the text of the article:

The problem with analyzing Chinese lending is that Chinese banks rarely disclose information regarding their financing activities, thus preventing any systematic research effort or detailed media coverage.

Still, some scholars like Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins and Kevin Gallagher of Boston University have provided estimations: between 2003 and 2011, China lent $53 billion to Africa and $80 billion to Latin America, more than half of which were commodity-backed.

You can read the entire article here.

Gallagher co-directs the Global Economic Governance Initiative and the Global Development Policy Program. Learn more about him here.