The Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, confirmed that there is strong support from the United States, Britain and other members of the Fund for efforts to help Sudan obtain debt relief.
"We are working intensively with Sudan to set preconditions for debt relief, and we will conduct an evaluation of the program next March," she said.
Earlier this month, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his Sudanese counterpart, Heba Mohamed, had a memorandum of understanding to provide financing facilities to pay Sudan's arrears to the World Bank, which would enable Sudan to obtain more than one billion dollars annually from the World Bank for the first time in 27 years.
The US Congress also passed legislation whereby Sudan receives $111 million to pay off part of its bilateral debt, and $120 million to contribute to the payment of debts it owes to the IMF, along with providing another $700 million in aid in support of the transitional government.
These pledges came immediately after the US administration’s decision to remove Sudan from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.
The Sudanese Ministry of Finance revealed that Sudan’s foreign debt has reached $60 billion. As for Sudan's creditors, they are the Paris Club with 37% of the total debt, 51% representing the dues of multinational corporations, in addition to 14% of the private sector debt. While the arrears owed to the International Development Association amounted to $700 million, and $2 billion to the International Monetary Fund.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
