China’s Global Energy Finance & China-Latin America Development Finance Database Updates

The COVID-19 pandemic along with the unfolding sovereign debt and climate crises have considerably upended government lending. The economies of Latin America contracted by 7.7 percent in 2020, the largest contraction globally in the COVID-19 era and the largest in the region in 120 years. The region has experienced half a million deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, also the most in the world and has slowest growth projected for 2021. Concomitantly, the pressures of climate change to shift to cleaner forms of energy are also weighing on governments and national budgets. China, as the world’s largest bilateral creditor and the only nation on earth to record economic growth last year, is in a unique position to help fund economic recoveries and the shift to clean energy. Zooming in on Chinese policy bank lending to global energy projects and to Latin America can provide a snapshot of some of the lending challenges of the previous year. How has Chinese policy bank financing of global energy projects and Latin America shifted in the past year? And how are these changes likely to impact the global and economic recoveries from COVID-19 and the global shift to cleaner sources of energy? On Wednesday, Feb. 24, join Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center and the Inter-American Dialogue for a webinar discussion on China’s overseas funding to Latin America and global energy projects. The Global Development Policy Center will present updates to its China’s Global Energy Finance Database, an inter-active data project that exhibits financing for global energy projects by China’s two global policy banks—the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (CHEXIM). Following that, the Global Development Policy Center and the Inter-American Dialogue will discuss updates to the China-Latin America Finance Database, a joint project first launched in 2012, that also tracks loans from CDB and CHEXIM to Latin American and Caribbean governments and state-owned enterprises. The panel will discuss the latest overall trends in China-Latin America financing and China’s global energy finance, and feature a Q&A session with the audience. Moderator: Kevin P. Gallagher: Director, Global Development Policy Center; Professor of Global Development Policy, Boston University Speakers: Xinyue Ma: Research and Project Lead, Global China Initiative, Global Development Policy Center Margaret Myers: Director, Asia & Latin America Program, Inter-American Dialogue Rebecca Ray: Senior Researcher, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University

When 9:00 am to 10:00 am on Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Location Zoom