China is “rebalancing” its overseas lending practices in the face of mounting concerns over the debt burdens of developing countries, the head of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank told the Financial Times yesterday.
Infrastructure investment in Asia’s largest developing countries fell in 2017 and 2018 amid a deleveraging campaign in China and deepening concern over the fiscal impact of Chinese-backed mega projects on their host countries.
The AIIB, the Beijing-based multilateral bank, provides an alternative model to the Chinese state-backed bilateral lending that has contributed to Venezuela’s economic meltdown , a contentious debt renegotiation in Sri Lanka and cancelled projects in Malaysia.