China should head the creditors committee being formed to renegotiate Zambia’s $17.3 billion of foreign debt because that will help accelerate the resolution process, the southern African country’s finance minister said. The Asian nation, whose lenders account for more than one-third of Zambia’s total external public liabilities, in April indicated that it would join the official creditors committee, breathing life to a process that had stalled.
A quick resolution will help the continent’s second-largest copper producer access concessional loans from the World Bank and the African Development Bank and make it easier for companies to tap international markets to fund expansion. President Hakainde Hichilema’s government has adopted the Group of 20’s so-called Common Framework for debt treatment designed to help poor countries. Progress has been slow, even after Zambia won preliminary approval for a $1.