Thursday, June 13, 2019

Ethiopia is struggling to manage debt for its Chinese-built railways

This post by SAIS PhD Candidate and CARI Research Assistant Yunnan CHEN is an excerpt of a piece originally published in Quartz Africa: read the full article here.

Photo credit: Yunnan CHEN
In the wake of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in Beijing last month, Ethiopia gained another Chinese debt-concession. China’s second-largest African borrower and prominent BRI partner in infrastructure finance also received a cancellation on all interest-free loans up to the end of 2018. This was on top of previous renegotiated extensions of major commercial railway loans agreed earlier in 2018.

These concessions highlight the continuing debt-struggles that governments have in taking on Chinese large infrastructure projects. But they also demonstrate the advantages and flexibility, that African governments can gain in working with China—if they can leverage it.

Ethiopia’s railway projects have been an instructive case of both the benefits and pitfalls of Chinese finance. It has been over a year since the Chinese-built and financed Addis-Djibouti standard gauge railway (SGR) opened to commercial service in January 2018. A flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the Horn of Africa, and constructed in parallel with Kenya’s showy Chinese-built SGR, the project was Ethiopia’s first railway since a century ago (another urban-rail project, the Addis light-rail transit (LRT) was completed earlier in 2015), as well as being the first fully-electrified line in Africa.

Costing nearly $4.5 billion, the SGR was partly financed through $2.5 billion in commercial loans from China Eximbank, according to figures from SAIS-CARI, with further loan packages dedicated to transmission lines and the procurement of rolling stock and locomotives. Part of China’s wider ‘export-supply chain’ strategy, the railway uses a package of Chinese trains, Chinese construction companies, Chinese standards and specifications—and is currently operated under a six-year contract by a joint venture of the two Chinese contractors, CREC and CCECC, who built it.

As part of a wider nine-line railway network plan under the Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC), the line cuts travel time from the capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti from two days by road to 12 hours.
On an economic front, however, actual uptake of the railway by the industrial zones it was intended to serve remains low—even after a year, the vast majority of the railway’s freight cargo is made up of imports, not exports. Integration with export and industrial zones is low, as the main trunk line does not connect to individual industrial zones, creating significant last-mile shipping and logistics for firms, particularly at port connections. Most exporters continue to use road transport, despite the higher time and financial cost, due to its greater flexibility and reliability compared to the train’s twice-daily schedule.

This is a major problem for the railway’s economic prospects. Few passenger-based rail systems in the world are profitable; in developing countries, most railways connect to mines: one of the few bulk goods that can generate returns for such capital-intensive transport.

China also bears these costs. State insurer Sinosure publicly commented on $1 billion in losses written off for the project, and Eximbank has halted previously-discussed funding for the country’s second line, the section from Weldiya to Mekele. Though contracted to another Chinese SOE, CCCC, Ethiopia faces little prospect of further loan finance from China, until the first railway can show demonstrable success.

Further financial challenges afflict the projects, along with Ethiopia’s growing debt burden. A long-term foreign exchange shortage, worsened by poor export performance, has challenged Ethiopia’s ability to repay many of the loans that financed these projects. Repayments on the principal for the Chinese railway loan began in 2017, before the line was even operational. As of the beginning of 2019, the ERC was not only behind in its loan repayments to China, but also unable to front the remainder of the management fees for the Chinese companies operating the railway.

In late 2018, Ethiopia negotiated with Beijing to restructure of the Eximbank loan terms, extending the repayment period from 15 to 30 years.

In this, China’s deep and strategically-tied pocketbook has been a big advantage, allowing Ethiopia to juggle its external obligations and leverage Chinese flexibility where it can. Ethiopia’s renegotiation and rollover of debt indicates that this BRI project is unlikely to have a Hambantota-esque Chinese takeover. But both sides have been burned: while the strategic discourse of the Belt and Road mean that the SGR will not be abandoned, both lender and borrower now show greater caution in the infrastructure they pour money into.