Nigeria’s debt to China has increased by a staggering 209 percent under President Muhammadu Buhari, according to data obtained from the Debt Management Office (DMO).
As of December 2022, Nigeria’s debt to China stood at $4.29 billion, up from $1.39 billion in June 2015, the DMO revealed.
Analysis of the data further revealed that China accounted for 84.73% of Nigeria’s bilateral debt, while the balance is from France, Japan, India, and Germany.
The DMO also explained that China’s loans are concessional, with an interest rate of 2.50% per annum, a tenor of 20 years, and a grace period (moratorium) of seven years.
Meanwhile, China has expressed readiness to listen to Nigeria, and other countries burdened with its debt amid pressure from the United States, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
However, the giant Asian country has made several demands before a final decision can be reached.
According to Bloomberg, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry at the recent Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable in US, proposed three conditions before a decision could be made.
The first is that multilateral creditors, including World Bank and International Monetary Fund, need to work out solutions for their participation in debt treatment as soon as possible.
Second, the IMF has to take action in information sharing on debt sustainability assessments as soon as possible. While the third condition is that the parties concerned have to agree on the specific way for creditors to participate on comparable terms as soon as possible.
He, however, failed to give a timeline for when the debt restructuring will commence.