{"id":19231,"date":"2023-04-21T14:04:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/zambia-says-its-close\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T14:11:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:11:04","slug":"zambia-says-its-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/zambia-says-its-close\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia says it’s close to MoU with official creditors on debt relief"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Mfula<\/p>\n

LUSAKA (Reuters) – Zambia’s official creditors are close to signing a memorandum of understanding on debt relief, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but it has struggled to finalise restructuring talks on external debt that reached $18.6 billion at the end of last year.<\/p>\n

“We are close but not yet there. By now we should have had an MoU signed by official creditors giving the IMF assurances,” Musokotwane said at a media briefing.<\/p>\n

“The creditors… are asking questions. They are all agreed on one thing: assistance will be provided, but the question is how much?” the minister said. “They are saying we must understand because they are losing money.”<\/p>\n

Sources told Reuters earlier this week that Zambia’s official creditors were getting closer to signing the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on debt relief in May, a key step to pave the way for more funding from the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n

China is Zambia’s largest bilateral creditor and many Western officials have blamed it for delays in the restructuring process — a position Beijing strongly denies.<\/p>\n

The IMF wants official creditors to outline in the MoU specific modalities of how they intend to deliver debt relief aligned with the parameters of a $1.3 billion 38-month programme approved by the fund’s board in August 2022.<\/p>\n

The release of about $188 million – the loan’s second disbursement – is subject to IMF Executive Board approval, with the IMF saying it is contingent upon bilateral creditors reaching a debt restructuring deal.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is working very hard to make sure that this money is released. I feel confident that this money will come,” Musokotwane said, referring to the IMF’s next payout.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Chris Mfula; Writing by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Alexander Winning, William Maclean)<\/p>\n

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By Chris Mfula LUSAKA (Reuters) – Zambia’s official creditors are close to signing a memorandum of understanding on debt relief, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said on Friday. Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but it has struggled to finalise restructuring talks on external […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-19231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K0GT-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19334,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19231\/revisions\/19334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}