Chinese overseas lending / BEN
Benin: debt owed to China
In 2021, Benin is estimated to have owed China $893m, equal to 5.0% of its GDP, which ranks it 65 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $893m in 2021.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2021, when it rose by $360m.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Benin, by year and instrument, 2000 to 2021. Zeros are estimated zeros (no known loans outstanding), not missing values. Methodology
Historical loan records from the 2021 release
These records come from the 2021 HRT Mendeley replication release, not the November 2025 refreshed stock panel charted above. The refresh uses the updated Franz, Horn, Parks, Reinhart and Trebesch methodology, so this table cannot be reconciled to the chart. The earlier release marks 7 loan-level records for Benin as part of its debt-estimate sample, spanning 2000 to 2015. Comparable commitments are available for 7 of those loans and sum to $613m. These are gross commitments, not outstanding debt stocks. The stock methodology applies disbursement and amortisation profiles, with imputation where loan terms are missing, so the commitment sum must not be compared with the stock above. See the methodology. Terms are sparse by source: interest rate appears on 5 loans, grace period on 4, maturity on 4, any of the three on 6, and all three together on 3. The earlier file also carries 38 additional project rows for Benin outside that sample, so they are not included in this table.
| Year | Project | Commitment, USD | Commitment, source currency | Terms | Creditor | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Adjarala Hydroelectric Project ID: BEN_43 · Source: BU Energy, JH CARI | $275m | n/a | rate n/a | grace 7y | maturity 20y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2015 | Benin National Broadband Network Project ID: BEN_44 · Source: AidData / Gelpern et al. (2021), JH CARI | $79m | RMB 49,600,000 | rate 2% | grace 7y | maturity 20y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2013 | China extends preferential Loan for Road Rehabilitation ID: BEN_37 · Source: AidData / Gelpern et al. (2021), JH CARI | $130m | RMB 800,000,000 | rate 1% | grace 6y | maturity 20y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2013 | Akassato-Bohicon Road Lot 2; 72.1km ID: BEN_34 · Source: JH CARI | $63m | n/a | rate 0% | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) Chinese government | Loan Zero-Interest Loan · borrower Central government |
| 2013 | China Exim Bank provided loans for the construction of Twin Administrative Towers in Cotonou ID: BEN_35 · Source: AidData, JH CARI | $32m | XOF 15,600,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2013 | Akassato-Bohicon Road Lot 1; 72.1km ID: BEN_33 · Source: JH CARI | $23m | n/a | rate 0% | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) Chinese government | Loan Zero-Interest Loan · borrower Central government |
| 2000 | China Exim Bank approved preferential loan worth 76.5 million RMB for cotton mill ID: BEN_25 · Source: AidData / Gelpern et al. (2021) | $11m | RMB 73,500,000 | rate 3% | grace 5y | maturity 15y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (2021 Mendeley replication loan file). Selection: 2021 replication loan records mapped to Benin and flagged DebtEstimateSample = 1 in that release. This is an earlier source universe, not the records used for the November 2025 refreshed stock panel. CommitmentUSD is a gross commitment flow and is not comparable to the charted stock. Commitment stays in its source currency, and ProjectDescription is rendered as free-text data from the file. Methodology
Against what Benin reports owing to all creditors
Benin reported $10.44bn of total external debt to all creditors in 2021, of which $5.84bn is public and publicly guaranteed. The China estimate is 8.5% of the reported external total and 11.7% of the reported public and guaranteed stock. These are ratios of two different measurements, one estimated and one borrower-reported, and they are not a share of a single consistent total.
| Measure, 2021 | Estimated, owed China | Reported, all creditors | Ratio, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total external debt | $893m | $10.44bn | 8.5% |
| Public and publicly guaranteed | $683m | $5.84bn | 11.7% |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (estimated stocks), and World Bank International Debt Statistics, borrower-reported via the Debtor Reporting System (all-creditor stocks). Selection: estimated external and PPG stock owed to China in 2021 against Benin's reported DT.DOD.DECT.CD and DT.DOD.DPPG.CD for the same year. Drawn swap balances are excluded from the estimated column: they are a central-bank liability the Debtor Reporting System's long-term-debt concepts do not carry. Methodology
Chinese restructurings involving Benin
1 deal recorded between Benin and Chinese state creditors. These are context, not accounting: the source records face-value reduction as a flag rather than a magnitude, so no haircut percentage exists for them, and nothing here is netted off the estimated stock above.
Creditor: China Ex-Im Bank
China Ex-Im Bank rescheduled a 73.5 mn RMB Concessional Governmen Loan to La Caisse Autonome d'Amortissement du Bénin in 2004 in response to financial distress. The loan carried the following terms: 15-year maturity, 5-year grace period, 3% interest rate, a 0.3% commitment fee, and a 0.25% management fee. The content of the rescheduling agreement is unknown.
AidData 2.0; Acker et al. (2020)
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, Hidden Defaults (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9925). Selection: every recorded restructuring agreement between Benin and a Chinese state creditor. Face-value reduction is a 0/1 flag in the source, not a percentage; the badge appears only where the source sets it. Methodology