The agreement grants Mozambique 16.1 million US dollars which will buy back commercial debt with a nominal value of 176 million dollars.
This is 119.8 million dollars in capital, and 56.2 million dollars in interest.
By far the largest of these commercial creditors is the Bank of Brazil, to which Mozambique owed 151.9 million dollars. The other creditors are the companies Raffels AG of Switzerland (which bought 10.2 million dollars of Mozambican debt from the Czech Republic), Brodoimpeks of Serbia (which inherited a debt to Yugoslavia of 8.8 million dollars), and the Export-Import Bank of India (5.2 million dollars).
The grant mostly came from Norway which provided 14.7 million dollars, and the World Bank topping it up with a further 1.4 million dollars.
This is the second buy back operation. The first was in 1991, and allowed Mozambique to write off 123.8 million dollars of commercial debt With the Thursday operation, the Mozambican government is totally free of commercial debt.
Signing the agreement were the Minister of Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, and the representative of the World Bank in Maputo, Michael Baxter.
SOURCE: AIM
