It appears lawmakers want to expand the number of countries where the U.S. development finance agency works and boost its ability to make equity investments so it can compete more with China.
At a pair of hearings on Wednesday, members of Congress said they would support improving how the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation makes equity investments and potentially expand the group of countries it can work with.
DFC’s mandate requires that it focus primarily on low- and middle-income countries, though some exceptions have been allowed by Congress. Lawmakers are discussing ways to make a more holistic change to allow investments in higher-income countries, rather than the piecemeal efforts to do so to date.