By Salem Solomon
In a ceremony last week attended by heads of state from across East Africa, Djibouti inaugurated what it says will become the largest free-trade zone on the continent.
The project will take 10 years to complete and will occupy more than 48 square kilometers when finished. In the pilot phase, it will increase the size of Djibouti’s economy by 11 percent, Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed told VOA’s French-to-Africa service.
But the $3.5 billion project will also add to what some experts consider to be an extreme reliance on Chinese financing and could raise the small desert nation’s debt to alarming levels.
Scott Morris is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and the director of the U.S. Development Policy Initiative. He co-wrote a report in Marchthat highlights the debt implications of the Belt and Road Initiative.
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