China: A new way of lending

In 2010 China Development Bank lent $20bn to Venezuela, money that the Latin American country agreed to pay back with oil shipments to China.

CDB had been issuing more and more of this kind of loan: huge in scale; to a borrower largely cut off from international finance; and with few policy conditions mentioned in public.

This largesse was stirring concerns the loans were little more than blank cheques to badly run states, assistance that would undermine the efforts of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund ... READ MORE

Released by the Financial Times - 23 September 2012