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FinObservatory

Chinese overseas lending / ISR

Israel: debt owed to China

In 2021, Israel is estimated to have owed China $814m, equal to 0.2% of its GDP, which ranks it 67 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $2.54bn in 2015.

$814m
Estimated total, 2021
rank 67 of 126
0.2%
Percent of GDP
2021
$0
Public and publicly guaranteed
2021
$814m
Private non-guaranteed
100.0% of external

The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021

The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2011, when it rose by $1.54bn.

Public and publicly guaranteedPrivate non-guaranteedPBoC swap drawings

Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Israel, 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 Israel 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 4 project rows mapped to Israel, 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 Israel. 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 Israel reports owing to all creditors

No comparison is possible. Israel 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.