A recent news article talks about a Chinese bank lending Niger $1 billion:
Chinese bank lends Niger $1 billion. The article appeared in Global Post here
The loan was agreed upon amidst opposition from some government officials. The article stated that, "Opposition figure Hama Amadou criticised the government over the loan in a televised parliament debate on October 19, accusing it of "squandering three years' worth of oil production" for a "$2 billion Exim Bank" loan, leading to a widespread public outcry" Read complete article here!
Niger,officially known as the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east. Niger is the largest West African nation and has a land mass of approximately 1,270,000 km2.
The Sahara Desert covers more than 80 percent of the land. The country's predominantly Islamic population of 17,129,076 is mostly clustered in the far south and west of the nation. Niger is economically restricted because of its landlocked position, desert terrain, poor education and poverty of its people, lack of infrastructure, poor health care, and environmental degradation.
Niger (highlighted in dark blue) is consistently lowly ranked by the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI). It was ranked 186th of 186 countries for 2012. Much of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the more fertile south, and the export of raw materials, especially uranium ore.