February 14, 2023 (MLN): The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and India are scheduled to host a virtual meeting on Friday to address global debt concerns, as per Bloomberg.
Creditors such as China, France, Japan, the UK, and the Institute of International Finance will be present along with borrowing countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia.
The meeting aims to identify solutions for nations with unsustainable debt levels and address shortcomings in debt restructuring, as well as ensure comparability of treatment between official and private creditors. The meeting also seeks to resolve legal and technical issues.
The Paris Club, which includes mostly Western traditional creditor nations, joined forces with China, India, and Saudi Arabia in 2020 under the Group of 20 fora to restructure struggling countries' debt through the Common Framework.
However, the process has been slow and only applies to low-income nations, leaving policymakers to search for other options to provide relief or restructuring for poor and middle-income countries with debt due in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The meeting will occur before the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Bangalore, India, where participants will discuss the debt-relief issue on the sidelines. However, not all the roundtable participants will be present, as borrowing countries will not be in attendance, the people familiar with the plans told Bloomberg.
