Chinese loans to Latin American and Caribbean governments and the region’s state-owned firms climbed sharply in 2015 despite the slowing Chinese economy, rising to US $29 billion and focused once again on Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador, the Inter-American Dialogue public policy think tank said in its annual report issued this month.
From nuclear power plants in Argentina to infrastructure projects in Costa Rica, the volume of finance was the highest since 2010 and marked a nearly 200 percent increase from the US $10 billion registered in 2014. Some US $400 million of those funds went to Costa Rica.
Chinese bilateral loans to the region eclipsed the combined lending to the region by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America, known as the CAF, Kevin Gallaher, a Boston University professor and coordinator of the report, said at a press conference.
Gallagher said the data showed that China was increasing its lending to Latin America at a time of cutbacks by other institutions, including the World Bank and the IDB, whose loans to the region fell to $8 billion and $11.5 billion last year, a decline of 8 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
He added that a key development this year was that a majority of the Chinese loans were for infrastructure projects as opposed to the extractive industries, as in years past
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