This paper aims to estimate China’s net foreign aid from 2001 to 2013 as compared to net ODA figures which OECD DAC usually uses. First, a practical definition to capture China’s foreign aid activities as a proxy for China’s ODA was proposed. It consists of grants and interest-free loans (treated as grants), concessional loans as bilateral aid, and contributions to international development agencies as multilateral aid. Second, both net and gross disbursements of China’s foreign aid were estimated. The results showed that China’s net foreign aid has grown rapidly since 2004 and reached US$ 7.1 billion in 2013. The share of bilateral aid is much larger than that of multilateral aid. The difference between net and gross foreign aid is still small due to the fact that the repayment of concessional loans is still relatively limited.
Relevant points from the paper are:
- Most Chinese aid is provided bilaterally. Only 15% is given as multilateral aid.
- Concessional loans, provided by China Eximbank, now make up nearly half of the total aid.
- There are more than 40 departments involved in some way.
The full paper is available here.