Chinese Government cancels BIF 37,965,894,400 of the Government of Burundi’s outstanding debt obligations

On April 27, 2001, Burundi's External Relations and Cooperation Minister, Mr Severin Ntahomvukiye, and the Chinese Ambassador to Burundi, Mr Meng Xianke, signed an agreement (中华人民共和国政府和布隆迪共和国政府关于免除布隆迪共和国政府部分债务议定书) on the partial remission of the Government of Burundi’s outstanding debt obligations to the Chinese Government. This debt forgiveness agreement reportedly reduced the Government of Burundi’s outstanding debt obligations to the Chinese Government by BIF 37,965,894,400. This act of debt forgiveness reportedly reduced the Government of Burundi’s outstanding debt obligations to China by half. The debts that were forgiven resulted from five interest-free Chinese Government loans that the Government of Burundi contracted between 1972 and 1993. These five loans were contracted included: - RMB 50 million loan contracted on January 6, 1972, - RMB 60 million loan contracted on March 19, 1979, - RMB 35 million loan contracted on May 6, 1985, - $2 million loan contracted on February 22, 1989, and - loan of an unknown amount contracted on February 15, 1993.

Additional details

1. This act of debt forgiveness in April 2001 was first agreed upon at a Sino-African cooperation forum in October 2000. One MOFCOM source suggests that the interest-free loan contracted on February 15, 1993 was worth $2 million; however, AidData has not yet independently corroborated this value. 2. This project is not marked as umbrella record because we do not capture any loan projects in Burundi prior to 2006, so there is no risk of double-counting.

Number of official sources

5

Number of total sources

10