Chinese Government cancels $32 million of Rwanda's outstanding debt obligations

During a five day visit to China on May 14-19, 2007, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Chinese President Hu Jintao signed an agreement canceling all of the Government of Rwanda's outstanding debt obligations 'through 2005'. According to the IMF, these obligations were worth $32 million. The US Embassy in Kigali has corroborated the deal.

Additional details

The debts that were cancelled almost certainly refer to interest-free loans that were contracted on or before 2005. This record is not coded as an umbrella project because AidData does not capture any Chinese Government loan-financed projects in Rwanda prior to 2009, so there is little to no risk of double-counting. SAIS-CARI’s dataset of China’s debt relief from 2000 to 2019 does not identify the monetary value of this act of debt forgiveness. AidData relies on IMF Country Report No. 09/58 for its estimate of the monetary value of the outstanding debts that were cancelled. Some sources suggest that the Chinese Government cancelled $160 million of outstanding debt obligations. However, this appears to be a reporting error, which may be attributable to confusion over the currency of denomination (RMB or USD).

Number of official sources

4

Number of total sources

10