Data from the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System (DRS) has been used to assess the validity of the BRI-debt estimates and the terms of BRI-related lending used in the analysis.<sup>14</sup> The DRS records all loans from Chinese institutions,<sup>15</sup> as reported by debtors’ countries. The loan information is not sufficient to identify whether a loan relates to a BRI project and, in addition, only countries which have data on both datasets are considered.<sup>16</sup> However, DRS data are available up to end-2017 and record all committed amounts for project loans. It is reasonable to assume that a loan contract has been signed for projects that are under construction. We therefore compare Chinese loan commitments in BRI countries with estimated BRI-debt financing derived from infrastructure projects under construction between 2013 and 2017. We find that our estimated commitments are lower than Chinese loan commitments recorded in the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System: around 4 billion less in low-income developing countries (LIDCs) and around 20 billion less in Emerging Markets (EMs). The difference may arise from the fact that governments may have already signed contracts for some projects that are still at the planning stage. As expected, the amount of estimated BRI debt financed projects planned and under construction exceeds the loan commitments during this period by about USD10 billion (Figure 2). However, discrepancies between DRS data and our estimated historical debt financing are large in some countries (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Estimated BRI PPG debt financing and China’s PPG Loan Commitments, 2013-2017 (In billions of U.S. dollars) <!-- Start of picture text --> By country groups By countries<br> 80 Estimated BRI Debt financing - Planned 80 20<br>Estimated BRI Debt financing - Under constr. 18<br> 70 70<br>second 16<br> 60 60<br> 14<br> 50 50 12<br> 10<br> 40 40 LIDCs EMs<br> 8<br> 30 30 6<br> 20 20 4<br> 2<br> 10 10<br> -<br> - 5 10 15 20<br> - - Loan commitments<br>LIDCs EMs<br>Estimated BRI debt financing<br><!-- End of picture text --> Sources: _International Debt Statistics_ , WIND database and authors’ calculations.

14 The World Bank’s DRS was established in 1951. The DRS system captures detailed information at loan level for external borrowing of reporting countries using standardized set of forms. The primary objective of the DRS is to provide the Bank with reliable and timely external debt information to assess a borrowing country's foreign debt situation, creditworthiness, and economic management; and conduct its country economic work and assess regional and global indebtedness and debt servicing problems. Data submitted by countries are entered into the DRS database, from which the aggregates and country tables are produced and published annually in the International Debt Statistics publication (successor to Global Development Finance and World Debt Tables). For additional information see <u>https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/381934-what-is-the-external-debtreporting-system-drs.</u> 15 Including government agencies, Exim Bank of China, financial institutions and suppliers’ credit. 16 The comparison is limited to 9 LIDCs and 15 EMs countries compared to a total number of 43 countries with identified BRI investment either planned or under construction during the period 2013-2017.

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