US Urges China to Step Up to Tackle Rising World Debt-Overhang Risk
- Failure to act will mean years of difficulties, Nieman says
- China’s participation is ‘the most consequential,’ he says
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A top US Treasury official urged China -- by far the world’s largest bilateral official creditor -- to take part in coordinated debt relief for vulnerable nations to avoid the specter of a systemic sovereign-debt crisis.
“Failure to act on these debts could imply years of ongoing difficulties with the servicing of debts and with underinvestment and lower growth in low- and middle-income countries,” Brent Neiman, a counselor to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, said in a discussion hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics Tuesday.