Chinese overseas lending / NPL
Nepal: debt owed to China
In 2021, Nepal is estimated to have owed China $603m, equal to 1.6% of its GDP, which ranks it 77 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $603m in 2021.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2019, when it rose by $82m.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Nepal, 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 5 loan-level records for Nepal as part of its debt-estimate sample, spanning 2008 to 2014. Comparable commitments are available for 5 of those loans and sum to $466m. 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 2 loans, grace period on 2, maturity on 3, any of the three on 3, and all three together on 2. The earlier file also carries 76 additional project rows for Nepal outside that sample, so they are not included in this table.
| Year | Project | Commitment, USD | Commitment, source currency | Terms | Creditor | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | China Exim Bank loans 215.96 million USD to Nepal for construction of Pokhara Airport ID: NPL_80 · Source: AidData | $216m | USD 215,960,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity 40y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2013 | China Exim Bank loans 218 million RMB to Nepal for acquisition of 4 aircrafts ID: NPL_75 · Source: AidData | $35m | RMB 218,000,000 | rate 1.5% | grace 7y | maturity 20y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower SOE |
| 2011 | EXIM Bank loan for construction of Upper Trishuli transmission line ID: NPL_66 · Source: AidData, BU Energy | $116m | USD 115,700,000 | rate 1.75% | grace 5y | maturity 25y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower SOE |
| 2011 | China offers soft loan for Trishuli-3A project in Nepal ID: NPL_63 · Source: AidData | $96m | NPR 7,080,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan Concessional · borrower Central government |
| 2008 | China agrees USD4M for Nepal Fibre-Optic Cable Construction ID: NPL_38 · Source: AidData | $4.00m | USD 4,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | Unspecified Chinese government agency Unspecified Chinese government agency | Loan loan type n/a · borrower Central government |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (2021 Mendeley replication loan file). Selection: 2021 replication loan records mapped to Nepal 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 Nepal reports owing to all creditors
Nepal reported $8.82bn of total external debt to all creditors in 2021, of which $7.76bn is public and publicly guaranteed. The China estimate is 6.8% of the reported external total and 4.7% 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 | $603m | $8.82bn | 6.8% |
| Public and publicly guaranteed | $362m | $7.76bn | 4.7% |
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 Nepal'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 Nepal
1 deal recorded between Nepal 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
In 2017, China Ex-Im Bank rescheduled a 114.7 mn USD Government Concessional Loan from 2011 with the following original terms: 1.75% interest, 25 year maturity, 5 year grace period. The rescheduling agreement granted Nepal an additional grace period of 4.5 years.
AidData 2.0
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, Hidden Defaults (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9925). Selection: every recorded restructuring agreement between Nepal 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