No.131 Estimating China's Foreign Aid II: 2014 Update

This paper aims to present updated estimates of China's foreign aid between 2001 and 2014 as a proxy for China's Official Development Assistance (ODA) as defined by the OECD-DAC, and to compare the results with the ODA of other DAC members. An estimation process is introduced which has been modified from the one proposed in the previous work (see Kitano and Harada 2014). China's net foreign aid increased steadily from US$ 5.2 billion in 2012 to US$ 5.4 billion in 2013 (the previous estimates of US$ 5.7 billion and US$ 7.1 billion were downwardly revised) and unexpectedly dropped to US$ 4.9 billion in 2014. Since 2013, China has maintained its ranking at number 9. China's bilateral foreign aid has been ranked at number 6, next to Japan and France, since 2012, while multilateral foreign aid has been relatively less significant. As a reference, it is estimated that net disbursements of preferential export buyer's credits decreased from US$ 4.9 billion in 2012 to US$ 4.7 billion in 2013 (the previous estimate amounting to US$ 7.0 billion was downwardly revised), and increased again to US$ 6.1 billion in 2014. China's foreign aid is expected to increase and catch up with the top five DAC members in the foreseeable future.

Keywords: China, foreign aid, development finance, ODA, concessional loans, OECD-DAC