Ofori Atta to lead delegation to China to beg for debt cancellation

Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, will lead a high-powered government delegation to China to plead for the acceptance of the country’s proposal for debt cancellation with the Paris club.

Mr. Ofori-Atta revealed to Svenja Schulze, a German Minister that China has committed to a bilateral negotiation.

The visit which is expected to happen this week is part of the government’s restructuring of its external debts.

Ghana is hoping to restructure $5. 7 billion with China holding a third of it amounting to 1.7 billion dollars.

“The big elephant in the room is China as in how they will comport themselves in the comparability of treatment because China wants to do bilateral. We would be visiting China by the end of the week to really discuss how they can envelope as quickly as possible,” Mr. Ofori Atta said.

The embattled minister is also of the view that a deal can be reached to enable Ghana to present her case before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) board.

On his part, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation Svenja Schulze says her country will assist Ghana to get fair treatment at the Paris club.

Ghana is currently restructuring its debt both domestically and externally in order to access support from the IMF.

On the back of this, Ghana’s bilateral lenders are discussing the formation of an official creditor committee, a first step needed to engage in debt relief talks for the country.

The Paris Club of creditor nations has contacted other bilateral creditors, such as China and India, to engage in forming the committee and deciding who would chair it.

China is Ghana’s single biggest bilateral creditor with $1.7 billion of debt, while Ghana owes $1.9 billion to Paris Club members, according to data from the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

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