AFGHANISTAN Debt Treatment - March 17, 2010

Paris Club creditors also committed on a bilateral and voluntary basis to provide an additional effort of USD 585 million, delivering 100% debt relief. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan committed to allocate the resources freed by the present debt relief to priority areas identified in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2007 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point in January 2010. In this context, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan  commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 17 March 2010, their appropriate contribution in terms of debt relief to the enhanced HIPC Initiative, on top of traditional debt relief mechanisms and consistent with the proportional burden sharing based on their relative exposure in net present value of total external debt at Decision Point after the full use of traditional debt relief mechanisms.

The appropriate nature of the debt relief provided will be assessed not only on the basis of the reduction in the net present value of the debt as computed under Appropriate Market Rate, but also on the terms of repayment of the debts not cancelled. For this purpose, all relevant elements will be taken into account, including the level of cash payments received by those creditors as compared to their share in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ’s external debt, the nature and characteristics of all treatment applied, including debt buy backs, and all characteristics of the reorganized claims and in particular their repayment terms whatever forms they take and in general the financial relations between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan  and creditor countries not listed in the Agreed Minutes dated 17 March 2010.

Consequently, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan commits not to accord any category of external creditors -and in particular creditor countries not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 17 March 2010, commercial banks, suppliers and bondholders- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.

Participating creditors

Observers

Press release