Chinese overseas lending / BRN
Brunei Darussalam: debt owed to China
In 2021, Brunei Darussalam is estimated to have owed China $1.86bn, equal to 13.3% of its GDP, which ranks it 47 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $1.86bn in 2021.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2018, when it rose by $437m.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Brunei Darussalam, 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
No mapped loan-level row for Brunei Darussalam is flagged DebtEstimateSample = 1 in the 2021 hrt_china_loans replication file, so there is no historical project table to show for that release. This does not mean the November 2025 refreshed stock panel lacks supporting records; the two releases use different source universes and cannot be reconciled here. The earlier file still carries 7 project rows mapped to Brunei Darussalam, but all of them sit outside that release's debt-estimate sample and are excluded here.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (2021 Mendeley replication loan file). Selection: 2021 replication loan records mapped to Brunei Darussalam. This earlier loan file is not the source universe used for the November 2025 refreshed stock panel. Rows outside DebtEstimateSample are not shown. Methodology
Against what Brunei Darussalam reports owing to all creditors
No comparison is possible. Brunei Darussalam has no row in the World Bank International Debt Statistics table. There is no reported all-creditor stock to measure the China estimate against, so the ratio is n/a, not zero and not a hundred percent. This is a difference in the scope of the two datasets, not evidence of anything hidden. The two-sources page lists every borrower in this position.