Zambia’s debt restructuring is being delayed by requests from China to have the southern African nation’s local-currency debt held by foreigners included in a deal that could set a global precedent, according to a senior US Treasury official.
China, whose creditors hold more than a third of Zambia’s dollar debt, has repeatedly been blamed for holding up progress in the revamp of debt owed by Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign defaulter, whose external liabilities topped $17 billion.
