India increases lending to African countries amid race with China – Kommersant

India increases lending to African countries amid a race with China for influence on the continent. Over the past ten years, countries have received $ 32 billion in loans from India – 38% of all loans issued by India to other countries. This was reported Bloomberg.

Harsha Bangari, managing director of the Export-Import Bank of India, told the agency that recently India has opened 195 credit project lines in healthcare, infrastructure and agriculture worth about $12 billion in Africa. She noted that this is more than has been discovered in South Asia in the past ten years. Ms. Bangari called her bank India’s “tool of economic diplomacy”.

Bloomberg writes that the Indian government, as part of its expansion in Africa, is strengthening diplomatic and economic ties with African countries. New Delhi sees development opportunities in African countries as they grapple with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

As Bloomberg notes, the volume of lending to African countries from China has begun to decline since 2016. However, until 2020, China provided about $134.6 billion worth of loans to African countries, which is almost 11 times more than India’s offer. In addition, China began to develop the extraction of local minerals in Africa. According to Bloomberg, China buys lithium and bauxite from the continent.

Olesya Pavlenko