WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The G20 major economies should revitalize their freeze in official bilateral debt payments by the poorest countries to include middle income countries and expand the participation of China and the private sector, a top White House official said.
Daleep Singh, the U.S. sherpa for the G7 and G20, told an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that China was by far the largest official bilateral creditor, and it should step up its participation in the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative.
“A lot of China’s lending activity is highly opaque, and it self-classifies much of the lending as commercially driven, even though it’s very clearly directed by the government,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal)