Chinese overseas lending / ROU
Romania: debt owed to China
In 2021, Romania is estimated to have owed China $251m, equal to 0.1% of its GDP, which ranks it 94 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $270m in 2020.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2020, when it rose by $122m.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Romania, 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 4 loan-level records for Romania as part of its debt-estimate sample, spanning 2002 to 2013. Comparable commitments are available for 4 of those loans and sum to $660m. 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 1 loans, grace period on 1, maturity on 2, any of the three on 2, and all three together on 1. The earlier file also carries 14 additional project rows for Romania outside that sample, so they are not included in this table.
| Year | Project | Commitment, USD | Commitment, source currency | Terms | Creditor | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 82 MW Solar Park in Romania ID: ROU_18 · Source: BU Energy | $130m | n/a | rate 4.58% | grace 3y | maturity 13y | China Development Bank (CDB) State-owned policy bank | Loan Commercial · borrower Private sector |
| 2004 | China EximBank funds the acquisition of equipment for Romanian POSTelecom Company ID: ROU_12 · Source: AidData | $130m | USD 130,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity 11y | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan loan type n/a · borrower SOE |
| 2003 | China supplies equipment worth 100 million USD to Romanian telecommunications company ID: ROU_10 · Source: AidData | $100m | USD 100,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) State-owned policy bank | Loan loan type n/a · borrower SOE |
| 2002 | China builds bridge over Danube River in Romania ID: ROU_8 · Source: AidData | $300m | USD 300,000,000 | rate n/a | grace n/a | maturity n/a | China Development Bank (CDB), China Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) State-owned policy bank | Loan Commercial · borrower Central government |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending (2021 Mendeley replication loan file). Selection: 2021 replication loan records mapped to Romania 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 Romania reports owing to all creditors
No comparison is possible. Romania 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.