Nasheed, Chinese ambassador continue social media dispute over debt issue

Chinese Ambassador to Maldives, Zhang Lizhong, has denied Speaker Mohamed Nasheed’s claims that the Maldives is required to pay over USD 15 million to Chinses banks within the next two weeks.

Former President, Nasheed via Twitter on Friday said the Maldives Treasury has to pay USD 15 million to Chinese back over the next 14 days.

Noting that “these payments represent 50 percent of government income over the next 14 days”, he stressed that Maldives “needs breathing space” after Covid-19.

Less than two hours after Nasheed’s tweet, the Chinese ambassador tweeted “good news”. He said that as per his information from the banks “there is no such USD 15 million payment in 14 days”.

He further asked to “check the account book and save [the amount] for the budget”.

However, Ambassador Lizhong sent out asecond tweetafter doing his "homework", on Saturday. While he shared images of what seemed to be the government’s loan repayment plans for December, the ambassador said that the only payment due to China Development Bank is USD 1.7 million for the Hulhumale' Link Road Project.

While he claimed that the earliest next payment is in mid-January 2021, which is over USD three million, the document shows that the payment is due in December 2020.

The ambassador said that another payment noted in it, the over USD 2.4 million for the 1,530 housing units in Hulhumale Phase II, is “for a bank of a third country, not for China Development Bank”.

As per the document shared by Lizhong, Maldives has to pay a total of USD 7,236,003 this month.

Nasheed thanked the ambassador for the concern in atweetsent out on Saturday afternoon.

Stressing that Maldives values its relationship with China, the former president appealed to find a quick solution to the debate issue than "wait until the 11th hour". He added that Maldives "needs a further two-year grace period" to repay the loan stressing that if not, the country "will never be able to repay these loans".

The former president and the Chinese official have had several heated exchanges on social media due to the former president's consistent public criticism of China and especially over his "debt trap" comments regarding projects carried out by the Southeastern Asian nation.

Back in November, Nasheed said that while debt repayments “amount to 53 percent of government revenue”, that over 80 percent of this goes to China.

Lizhong responded that China prefers friendship, adding that “a friend in need is a friend indeed”.

Following this exchange, the President’s Office confirmed that the Chinese government had deferred the repayment of some loans taken for the upcoming year as well, under the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). However, RaajjeMV understands that the Maldivian government is yet to receive any documents confirming this.

As per the statistics publicized by the Ministry of Finance, Maldives owes China USD 1.4 billion; which is 38 percent of its foreign debt.