Guyana gets US$65M debt relief from IDB
--- donor agency welcomes HIPC completion point
Guyana Chronicle
March 20, 2004
THE Inter-American Development Bank yesterday welcomed Guyana's attainment of the completion point under the Enhanced HIPC debt relief initiative for heavily indebted poor countries. Attainment of the completion point allows the country to receive the full amount of debt relief from international donors.
Members of the IDB Board of Executive Directors praised Guyana's authorities for undertaking a series of economic stabilization, structural reform and poverty reduction measures that accompany the E-HIPC debt reduction program, and used the opportunity to confirm total IDB debt relief to Guyana under the initiative of US$65.1 million in net present value (NPV) terms.
The IDB has already granted interim debt relief of US$17.2 million in NPV terms to Guyana under the E-HIPC initiative since December 2002, and the remaining relief of US$47.9 million will be applied in stages through 2012. Total relief from the IDB for Guyana under both the Original and Enhanced HIPC initiatives will be US$114.2 million in net present value or approximately $203.5 in nominal terms.
The combined effort of multilateral institutions and bilateral donors under both initiatives is expected to reduce Guyana's outstanding public external debt by almost one half.
The IDB and other multilateral donors provided the country with technical assistance and financing to assist it in preparing the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, a framework to ensure that HIPC debt relief and other forms of external development assistance are effective in achieving sustained reductions in poverty levels in Guyana.
The IDB is Guyana's largest creditor and largest source of debt relief under both the Original and Enhanced HIPC initiatives. The IDB has also provided debt relief to Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua under the HIPC framework.