Government has maintained that Chinese Loans stand at US$2.81 billion which is 30 percent of the total Zambia’s external debt.

And government has disclosed that it has so far deposited around US$10 million into the sinking fund.

Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary Mukuli Chikuba says government has started this year to put money into the fund which cost around $20 million to set up.

He says the medium term expenditure framework passed by cabinet last weekend is expected to be made public this week.

Government earlier had announced plans of setting up a sinking fund to refinance the Eurobonds in December 2017.

It also announced that it had set aside US$20 million for the refinancing of its three Eurobonds – the US$750 million, US$1 billion and US$1.25 billion – all falling due between 2022 and 2027 respectively.

The Ministry of finance recently released what it termed as the Vital Statistics on debt which indicate that the total public debt stands at approximately US$14.56 billion, as at end of June 2018.

The figures broken down indicate that external debt stood at US$9.37 billion while the Domestic debt was K51.87 billion or US$5.87 billion.

Mr. Chikuba has however said that 30 percent of the total external debt is owed to the Chinese.

President Edgar Lungu last month assigned five ministers to travel to China and engage authorities, financing institutions and business houses on a Chinese Debt Restructuring Programme.