By Zaheena Rasheed
From the article:
Cannons blasted the balmy air of Male with a 21-gun salute on Saturday, just moments after Ibrahim Mohamed Solih finished taking the oath of office as the seventh president of the Maldives.
It was a momentous occasion, one that capped a tense, months-long presidential contest, and a subsequent period of post-election uncertainty following years of political turmoil in the small Indian Ocean island nation.
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Chinese Debt
In his speech, Solih said the Maldives was “in a precarious financial situation” owing to “reckless development projects”, and appealed for help from foreign countries and international organisations to stabilise the economy.
Under Yameen, Beijing had loaned an estimated $1.5bn to the Maldives to fund an upgrade of the country’s main international airport – a bridge linking it to Male – as well as massive housing projects in a new population centre.
The debt figure is more than a quarter of the country’s annual gross domestic product.
In March, the US-based Centre for Global Development in March identified the Maldives as one of eight countries subject to high debt distress because of investments from China.
Read the full article here.