Sudanese authorities want creditors
to write off much of the country’s $38 billion foreign debt
before Southern Sudan becomes independent in July, a minister in
the southern government said.
Without debt relief, the northern and southern regions are likely to split the debt load, Gabriel Changson Chang, a member of the committee negotiating financial arrangements with the north, said today in an interview in Juba, the southern capital. At most, 75 percent of the debt will be written off, he said.
Sudan hasn’t been able to borrow from the World Bank since 1993 because of its failure to make payments on its debt. That may leave the south, one of Africa’s poorest regions, ineligible to borrow from the bank. Sudan has debt arrears of about $30 billion, according to the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
“We want both the north and south to be economically viable,” said Chang, who also is the southern minister of culture.
Almost 99 percent of Southern Sudanese voters chose independence in a referendum last month. The plebiscite was the centerpiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan.
At independence the south will assume control of almost three quarters of Sudan’s current oil production of 490,000 barrels a day, pumped mainly by China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Sudan’s output is the third-biggest in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Without debt relief, the northern and southern regions are likely to split the debt load, Gabriel Changson Chang, a member of the committee negotiating financial arrangements with the north, said today in an interview in Juba, the southern capital. At most, 75 percent of the debt will be written off, he said.
Sudan hasn’t been able to borrow from the World Bank since 1993 because of its failure to make payments on its debt. That may leave the south, one of Africa’s poorest regions, ineligible to borrow from the bank. Sudan has debt arrears of about $30 billion, according to the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
“We want both the north and south to be economically viable,” said Chang, who also is the southern minister of culture.
Almost 99 percent of Southern Sudanese voters chose independence in a referendum last month. The plebiscite was the centerpiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan.
At independence the south will assume control of almost three quarters of Sudan’s current oil production of 490,000 barrels a day, pumped mainly by China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Sudan’s output is the third-biggest in sub-Saharan Africa.
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