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The Plunge in Chinese Overseas Lending is a Big Deal. It’s a REALLY Big Deal.

by Eric Olander
Photo via China Daily.

Recent findings by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center that China’s two largest policy banks, China Exim Bank and the China Development Bank, sharply curtailed their lending from $75 billion in 2016 to just $4 billion, was a stunning surprise.

Long before the COVID-19-induced economic crisis, we started hearing that China’s loans to developing countries were beginning to slow, but nothing like this. Going from $75b to $4b in such a short period of time is a dramatic course correction. There’s just no other way to say it.

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