Sri Lanka Urges CCP to Ease Debt While CCP Denies Belt and Road Initiative the “Debt Trap”

At a press conference on the Eighth Strategic Talk of the Central African League on Jan 11, Qin Gang, the new foreign minister of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who is visiting Africa, criticized media outlets calling the CCP’s “Belt and Road Initiative” a debt trap is framing and language trap.Qin Gang claimed that the purpose of the CCP’s “Belt and Road Initiative” is to enhance the independent development capabilities of relevant countries.

 However, people from Sri Lanka, the country that is currently mired in the “Belt and Road Initiative” debt crisis, may have a different view.

 Nandalal Weerasinghe, governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, requested CCP to provide debt relief as soon as January 11. Meanwhile, he also sent a debt reduction request to another creditor, India, it is reported that Sri Lanka’s debt to CCP has accumulated to 7billion, whileIndiaabout1 billion.Weerasinghe said in an interview on the 11th: Although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to cover US$2.9 billion of Sri Lanka’s outstanding debts, the IMF requires Communist China and India to agree to debt relief as a prerequisite for releasing the funds. Therefore, Weerasinghe called on the CCP to release the debt relief statement as soon as possible.