Chinese overseas lending / RUS
Russia: debt owed to China
In 2021, Russia is estimated to have owed China $67.50bn, equal to 3.7% of its GDP, which ranks it 1 of 126 borrowers in the panel by dollars owed. The estimated stock peaked at $76.19bn in 2018.
The estimated stock, 2000 to 2021
The largest single-year move in the estimated stock is 2013, when it rose by $14.04bn.
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: estimated stock owed to China by Russia, by year and instrument, 2000 to 2021. Zeros are estimated zeros (no known loans outstanding), not missing values. Methodology
Against what Russia reports owing to all creditors
No comparison is possible. Russia 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.
People’s Bank of China swap drawings
Russia carried a drawn swap balance in 4 years of the panel, peaking at $176m. A drawing is a liability to another central bank, and it is not netted out of a headline gross reserves figure.
| Year | Drawn balance | Share of the year’s China total |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $1.54m | 0.0% |
| 2016 | $130m | 0.2% |
| 2017 | $176m | 0.2% |
| 2018 | $130m | 0.2% |
Source: Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch, China’s Overseas Lending. Selection: every year in which Russia carried a drawn PBoC swap-line balance above zero. Methodology
The same balance measured against gross international reserves, for every country that has drawn