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Russia Pardoned $20bn to Poorest Africa
Russia has pardoned the $20-billion debt of poorest nations of Africa, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced.
“The overall debt of the African nations that we have cancelled, including the bilateral one, exceeds $20 billion,” the minister announced, pointing out that roughly a half of the amount has been pardoned in the recent two years.
“Russia does a lot to write off the debt burden, including under the initiative for indebtedness of poor nations with huge debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and International Development Association (IDA),” Lavrov specified.
Russia’s turnover with Africa soared to $6 billion in 2007, Lavrov went on, emphasizing potential for further growth.
It is not the first time that Russia has pardoned the debt this year. It wrote off $4.5 billion of Libya’s debt April 17 in exchange for the multibillion deals with Russia’s companies. In February, Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari inked an agreement committing Russia to write off 93 percent of Iraq’s debt. The matter at stake is $12 billion.
Russia inked a similar agreement with Afghanistan in the middle of previous year, undertaking to write off roughly $11 billion and restructure $730 million for 23 years.
Russia ranks the third worldwide in terms of the absolute support to the poorest nations and leads in such support ratio to GDP.
www.kommersant.com
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