Source: PIDHDD

Author: Kevin P. Gallagher, Amos Irwin, Katherine Koleski

Edit: Inter-American Dialogue (IAD: Shaping Policy Debate for Action)

Language: english

Tipe: Report

Theme: China in Latin America

Sumary:

 Executive Summary
 1. Background and methodology
 2. Chinese loans to Latin America are larger and Growing Faster than their western Counterparts
 3. Chinese Finance terms are not always so “sweet” when there is access to international Capital markets
 4. On China’s terms: Commodity-Backed loans
 5. Different Development model? China seeks to Finance a Different, but sometimes overlapping, set of Projects
 6. No Policy Conditionality for Chinese loans but strings still attached
 7. Environmental Guidelines exist but not on Par with western Counterparts
 8. Summary and Conclusions
 Annex: Key loan sources

In their Inter-American Dialogue report, “The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America,” Kevin Gallagher, Amos Irwin, and Katherine Koleski offer the first comprehensive summary of China’s lending practices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The authors provide estimates of the volume, composition, and characteristics of Chinese lending to the region since 2005, offer comparisons to international and Western lending institutions, and examine some commonly held notions about Chinese loans to LAC. These include claims that China’s loans have less favorable terms than those of international financial institutions (IFIs) and Western banks, that Chinese lending carries few policy conditions, and that Chinese lenders impose less stringent environmental guidelines than their Western counterparts. The report lends credence to some of these claims, but less so to others.