Zambia is failliet: eerste land dat coronacrisis niet overleeft (rtlnieuws.nl)

Heeft weinig met corona te maken, meer met jarenlang financieel mismanagement van de overheid daar.

Terwijl ze er voor de huidige regering aantrad, best goed voor stonden.

"Before his party, the Patriotic Front (pf), took power in 2011, Zambia’s economy was doing rather well. Over the previous two decades the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (mmd) had unpicked the one-party socialism of Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president. Copper mines, which generate 75% of the country’s exports, were privatised before the commodity boom of the 2000s. After Zambia was forgiven some loans, its debt as a share of gdp fell from 104% in 2005 to 25% a year later. Economic growth averaged 7.4% a year from 2001 to 2010.

The pf has borrowed heavily, splurging on infrastructure and civil-service pay. In 2015, when Mr Lungu became president, these trends accelerated. Debt in foreign currencies or owed to foreigners tripled between 2014 and 2018 relative to gdp. Compared with the mid-2000s, today’s creditors are more diverse and interest rates are higher. Of the roughly $12bn (51% of gdp) of external debt on Zambia’s books at the end of 2018, about 30% was owed to China, 25% to bondholders and 19% to foreign banks. The World Bank, the imf and Western governments hold a relatively small share."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/05/02/zambia-was-already-a-case-study-in-how-not-to-run-an-economy