Chinese banks have made more than $75 billion in loan commitments to Latin American and Caribbean countries since 2005, according to a recently published study.

“The New Banks in Town: Chinese Finance in Latin America,” a report published by the think tank Inter-American Dialogue, found that Chinese banks loaned $37 billion to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2010. That figure exceeds the $26 billion total that the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank gave out that year in the region.

Most of the Chinese loans were made to four Latin American countries – Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador.

In about two thirds of the cases, the loans were granted to the commodity-rich countries in exchange for oil, the study found.

Some of the lending comes through “policy banks” – the China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank – whose loans support the Chinese government’s foreign policy objectives. Four other large Chinese banks focus on commercial loans.

 

See the March 1, 2012 edition for full coverage.

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