Kenya’s debt repayments towards infrastructure projects funded by China have more than doubled to KSh73.48 billion the current financial year, attributed to increased clearance of principal sums after lapse of the grace period.
Expenditure data published by the National Treasury shows the debt repayments to Chinese lenders has increased by 135.15% compared with KSh31.25 billion in the year ended June 2021 when a moratorium due to the impacts of COVID-19 was in place.
The cash was wired to the lenders — Exim Bank of China and China Development Bank — in two batches of KSh43.62 billion in the third quarter of the current fiscal year (around January), and KSh29.86 billion in July 2021.
The debt repayments to Chinese lenders accounted for 81.4% of the KSh90.26 billion that the Treasury spent on servicing bilateral debt in the nine-month period through March.
The Treasury report shows China’s total debt to Kenya dropped to KSh793 billion in March from KSh806 billion last December, the lowest since KSh780 billion in December 2020.
China is projected to lend Kenya KSh29.46 billion for the fiscal year 2022/23. That marks the second year in a row that China will trail Japan in bilateral loans, the former having committed KSh21.25 billion in the current year ending June against Japan’s KSh36.49 billion.
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