Emerging economies will have to find fresh sources of funds as China reduces investment and loans, a study by the French insurance-credit group Euler Hermes said this week.

The company expects China "to slow its international engagement over the next few years," according to a report released on Tuesday.

That is because as Chinese economic growth slows, Beijing must also deal with "a heavy domestic debt burden", the report said.

Euler Hermes estimated that 10 emerging market countries in Africa and Latin America that have received substantial Chinese aid since 2010 will face a combined deficit of $47 billion.

In recent years, China has been the world's leading creditor to poorer countries, accounting for 63 percent of all such loans extended by G20 countries at the end of 2019, the World Bank said last month.

Countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia have improved economic infrastructure thanks to Chinese financing that was part of the strategic Belt and Road Initiative, Euler Hermes noted.

But Beijing has also lent money to countries that might not be able to pay it back, such as Angola, Argentina and Ecuador, which offered guarantees in the form of natural resources that could prove hard to recover if they defaulted on their loans.

Euler Hermes' data showed that Ethiopia and Zambia in particular relied on Chinese funding, as it represented 49 percent and 45 percent respectively of all loans contracted abroad.

For Kenya the rate was 37 percent, and for Angola it was 30 percent.

Angola has large hydrocarbon reserves, and a little more than two-thirds (67.6 percent) of its exports were to China last year.

boc/wai/tgb

EULER HERMES

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