Chinese debt accounts for about 20% of African countries' external government debt and receives just 17% of interest payments. On the other hand, a third of African governments’ debt is owed to private creditors, who account for 55% of interest payments.
There is less publicity on Africa's debt problem due to private debt compared to how much hashtag#China has received a lot of criticism from western media arguing that China is using "hashtag#debttrapdiplomac". Based on the data shared in the Financial Times, there is a need to dig deeper into Africa's external debt to better understand who is actually trapping the continent in debt.