Africa faces new wave of debt distress as US hikes signal end of cheap money
More than a decade after some of the world's leading economies wrote off billions of dollars of African debt, the continent could be headed for a funding crisis as the era of cheap money comes to an end. Nigeria and other countries loaded up on cheap debt over the past decade, taking advantage of record low interest rates in the US, UK and Europe. With the US Federal Reserve's rate hike this week by 25 basis points to 1.75%, the sixth hike in three years, the sustainability of African countries' debt is now being questioned by analysts. Egged on by international pressure, the world's leading lenders, such as the IMF, cancelled 100% of the obligations of highly indebted poor countries in 2005. But by 2013, according to estimates by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Africa's external debt stock had rapidly grown to $443-billion due to bilateral borrowing, syndicated loans and bonds. Earlier this month, the IMF warned that Nigeria's interest payments to revenue may rise to ov...
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