Should Africa be wary of Chinese debt?

African countries have shown a healthy appetite for Chinese loans but some experts now worry that the continent is gorging on debt, and could soon choke.

The Entebbe-Kampala Expressway is still something of a tourist attraction for Ugandans, nearly three months after it opened.
The 51km (31 mile), four-lane highway that connects the country's capital to the Entebbe International Airport was built by a Chinese company using a $476m (£366m) loan from the China Exim Bank.
It has cut what was a torturous two-hour journey through some of Africa's worst traffic into a scenic 45-minute drive into the East Africa nation's capital.

The new expressway was financed with millions of dollars from China

Uganda has taken $3bn of Chinese loans as part of a wider trend that Kampala-based economist Ramathan Ggoobi calls its "unrivalled willingness to avail unconditional capital to Africa".
"This debt acquired from China comes with huge business for Chinese companies, particularly construction companies that have turned the whole of Africa into a construction site for rails, roads, electricity dams, stadia, commercial buildings and so on," the Makerere University Business School lecturer told the BBC.

The Chinese loans come as many African countries are once again in danger of defaulting on their debts more than a decade after many had their outstanding borrowing written off.
At least 40% of low-income countries in the region are either in debt distress or at high risk, the International Monetary Fund warned in April.

Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe were considered to be in debt distress at the end of 2017 while Zambia and Ethiopia were downgraded to "high risk of debt distress".
"In 2017 alone, the newly signed value of Chinese contracted projects in Africa registered $76.5bn," Standard Bank's China Economist Jeremy Stevens wrote in a note.
"However, despite a sizeable remaining infrastructure deficit on the continent, there is a concern that African countries' debt-service ability will soon dissolve," he says.

The Chinese model has many high-profile defenders on the continent, including the head of the African Development Bank (ADB) Akinwumi Adesina, a former Nigerian agriculture minister.
"A lot of people get nervous about China but I am not. I think China is Africa's friend," he told the BBC.
China is now the single largest bilateral financier of infrastructure in Africa, surpassing the ADB, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of eight (G8) countries combined.
source: bbc.com