World Bank president sees “convergences” on debt and reforms

The president of the world Bank (BM) affirmed this Thursday that it was “satisfied” with the “convergences” between the main members of the entity on issues such as the intervention capacity of international financial institutions (IFIs) or the restructuring of the debt of developing countries.

“There is convergence on how to strengthen financial capacity. This should allow us to have an additional US$ 50,000 million in the next ten years”, insisted the president of the BMDavid Malpass, at the opening press conference of the spring meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which officially begin this Thursday.

In practice, the meetings began at the beginning of the week, with a round table on the debt restructuring of the most indebted States in which they participated, in addition to the IMF and the BMthe main creditor countries, including China, as well as representatives of private creditors and Zambia, one of those affected.

“We hope to achieve a memorandum on the subject soon”, he stressed malpass. “It was the objective of this process and we hope to achieve it this week or next”.

Steadily rising interest rates put low-income countries closer to the risk of a debt crisis. This is already the case for 15% of them, said the head of the IMFKristalina Georgieva, and another 40% could have this problem.

Likewise, malpass On his side, he points out that it is difficult to negotiate, because it is “basically changing the conditions of the debt contract, modifying the rate or extending the maturity or the amount to be repaid, to make the country’s debt more sustainable,” a long process.

malpasswho will leave office at the end of June, acknowledged that “look for new opportunities” after having been part of the US administration since 1984.

He will most likely be succeeded by the American Ajay Banga, the only candidate for the position.

Source: AFP