G20 Debt Relief Program Draws 41 Countries

Business

June 26th, 7:18am

Asharq Al-Awsat

G20 Debt Relief Program Draws 41 Countries

A Group of 20 debt service suspension initiative agreed in April has received 41 applications from the 73 poor countries eligible for the official bilateral debt relief initiative, Saudi Arabia's G20 Secretariat said on Thursday. Following a G20 debt working group meeting, the Secretariat said in a statement that 26 of the countries applying for debt relief through the end of 2020 were from Africa, and implementation of the program had accelerated in June. Participants at the two-day G20 International Financial Architecture Working Group (IFA WG) meeting on June 23 discussed the ongoing implementation of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and also explored ways to enhance global financial stability and resilience, said Thursday’s statement. Saudi G20 Presidency IFA WG policy lead Bandr Alhomaly said, “We are encouraged by the increasing number of applicants benefiting from the historic G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, with 41 countries having applied to date.” “This initiative ensures mobilizing critical resources toward mitigating the pandemic’s consequences,” he added. Guillaume Chabert, French Co-Chair of the G20 IFA WG also said that “the pace of implementation of the DSSI has significantly accelerated in June, in particular with the clarification that requesting the DSSI for official bilateral creditors does not oblige beneficiary countries to make the same request to private creditors, and credit rating agencies having clarified in parallel their position on the DSSI.”

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2355116/g20-debt-relief-program-draws-41-countries