$161m debt relief for Ethiopia

2005-12-25 16:14

Addis Ababa - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) disclosed on Friday it was extending 100% relief on all outstanding debt owed it by Ethiopia prior to January 1 2005, a write-off amounting to about $161m.

The write-off includes assistance the IMF extended to the country under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and is part of the $3.3bn debt relief the Fund approved for 19 countries earlier last week in Washington, the IMF resident representative in Addis Ababa disclosed in a statement.

"Ethiopia has qualified for the debt relief because of its overall satisfactory recent macroeconomic performance, progress in poverty reduction, and sound public expenditure management," said Armin Schwidrowski, the Fund's Resident Representative in Ethiopia.

He noted that the country had recorded in the last two years in particular "high economic growth and rapid expanding exports, while containing inflationary pressure", according to the statement.

It said the debt relief was part of a larger relief package endorsed by the leaders of the G8 industrial countries at their summit in July in Gleneagles, Scottland.

The IMF is a soft-loan arm of the World Bank, which along with the African Development Bank is expected to follow the IMF action on debt relief to poor countries when their own board votes approving cancellation of debts owed to their respective institutions.

The 19 countries benefiting from debt relief approved Wednesday by the IMF board were Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA