LONDON - The latest bid by the world's leading institutions and creditors to speed up debt restructurings and get bankrupt countries back on their feet has been greeted by a mix of cautious optimism and weary scepticism by veteran crisis watchers. Standoffs between major Western-backed lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the world’s top bilateral creditor, China, have...
Andrea Shalal moderates an IMF roundtable on tackling public debt with Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, Director, Strategy, Policy and Review Department IMF, Felix Nkulukusa, Secretary to the Treasury, Zambia, Marco Buti, Head of Cabinet of European Commission and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Director and Economic Counsellor, Research Department, IMF, during IMF Spring Meetings at the International Monetary Fund Building in Washington, US on April 12.
Beijing is yet to comment, but the idea is that it would then drop its insistence that the multilateral lenders take losses, or "haircuts", on the loans they have provided or underwritten in crisis-hit countries. Besides members of the Paris Club of creditor nations such as the United States, France and Japan, cash-strapped nations now have to rework loans with lenders such as India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Kuwait - but first and foremost China.
Authorities in Beijing also prefer to roll over debt payments rather than write them off, and given it is an increasingly dominant creditor, it has little incentive to follow co-operative Paris Club-like principles. Anna Ashton, director of China research at Eurasia Group, said this week’s developments underscored the benefits for China to give some ground on some of its concerns.
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