Tonga starts repaying $10.8m a year to China for reconstruction

The Tonga Government will start paying $TOP10.8 million a year during the next ten years, (principal only) of its $TOP119m loan from the Exim Bank of China that was used to fund reconstruction projects after the 2006 riots in Nuku'alofa. The start of the principal repayments has already contributed to a $22.8m decline in Tonga’s foreign reserves in September. Now Tonga is confronting the real cost of the riots.