Associated Press | January 30, 2002
French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on Wednesday called for the creation of an international commission on debt relief to help countries that have borrowed beyond their means.
The commission would comprise representatives from public and private creditors who would examine the cases of countries having difficulty in repaying their debt, Jospin said. "We cannot accept that only public creditors - that is, the taxpayers - pay the price of over-indebtedness, while at the same time private investors that lent at high interest rates get out with hardly a scratch," Jospin said.
Jospin introduced his proposal in a speech on globalization before the Economic and Social Council, an institution that groups together experts from government, business and labor groups.
Foes of globalization are meeting in Brazil beginning Thursday for the World Social Forum, where thousands of participants will hold debates and seminars on topics ranging from Third World debt to the problems of indigenous peoples.
The prime minister also said he favors the idea of an exceptional issue of Special Drawing Rights by the International Monetary Fund for poorer countries, to allow them to boost their foreign currency reserves and give a push to growth.
Jospin said he hopes a consensus can be reached at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in mid-March.
A special one-time allocation of SDRs worth dlrs 27 billion aimed at easing the debt burden on the world's less advanced countries has been on the table since 1997, but has failed to generate necessary support.
The SDR is a national basket currency used in transactions between the IMF and its member countries.Associated Press:
