Africa Debt Risk Perceptions ‘Overblown,’ Zambian Official Says

Mispriced risk in African sovereign debt is costing the continent billions of dollars in additional debt-service payments and constraining critical economic growth, according to a Zambian Treasury official.

African nations pay nearly three percentage points more to borrow than peers in other regions because investors have “overblown fears,” Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa said Tuesday at a conference in Cape Town. “Every investor believes Africa is just a monolith of political instability and bad governance.”