Name: Sierra Leone Narrowly Sidesteps China's Debt Trap
Uploaded: 2021-06-02T15:10:28.000Z
Duration: 7 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Sierra Leone is the first country in Africa

In fact, it's kind of what South Carolina sees

where the average life expectancy is 77 years,

people in Sierra Leone live to an average of just 52.

when Sierra Leone was in the middle of a bloody 10-year civil war a

They assembled seven of us. Six were killed.”

More than half the population lives below the poverty line

But recently, things seem to be looking up for Sierra Leone.

“We are a successful modern, stable democracy.

One that has evolved and matured over 20 years

from chaos and lawlessness of civil conflict.”

...at the recent Forum on China-Africa Cooperation,

But President Bio made headlines last week

when he overturned a huge deal with China

to build the Mamamah International Airport…

...with funding from a Chinese state-owned bank

A third of that was to be from a loan that Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone's Minister of Transport and Aviation

announced the project's cancellation in a letter,

part of which was published in the Daily Nation,

So instead of taking out a massive loan to build

a brand new airport that it doesn't need,

Sierra Leone is going to fix up the one it already has.

given that a recent IMF mission to Sierra Leone

found that “the economic environment remains challenging”

and hailed the new government's efforts to

“stabilize public debt and reduce it to sustainable levels,

and prioritize public investment aimed at

reducing social and infrastructure gaps.”

It also turns out that an earlier 200 million loan from China

for the same proposed new airport was cancelled

did a debt sustainability analysis of Sierra Leone,

and expressed “strong concerns” about the deal.

And when a formal organization like the IMF

If you can't afford to pay back an IMF loan,

before bailing you out with another loan.

clamp down on corruption, or strengthen rule-of-law institutions.

But those are generally things that make a country better,

But if you owe China money and can't afford to pay up,

China recently set up a military base there—

China is also helping finance the main seaport in Djibouti.

it may be forced to hand over its port to China.

the key access point in and out of Djibouti.

The big fear is that as China hands out loans

for huge infrastructure projects around the world

it will use the loans that countries can't afford t

o pay back as a way to take resources or territory.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Sierra Leone Narrowly Sidesteps China's Debt Trap

episode

prioritize

average

infrastructure