BURUNDI Debt Treatment - March 11, 2009

possibility to conduct debt swaps

On a voluntary and bilateral basis, the Government of each Participating Creditor Country or its appropriate institutions may sell or exchange, in the framework of debt for nature, debt for aid, debt for equity swaps or other local currency debt swaps all ODA loans.

Participating Creditor Countries and the Government of the Republic of Burundi shall inform semi-annually the Secretariat of the Paris Club, who shall inform other creditors, of the debt swaps agreements they have implemented. All elements necessary to evaluate the operation, its impact on the Republic of Burundi's economy and on the evolution of Creditor's exposure shall be transmitted to the Secretariat, including: its nature and purpose; the parties to the debt swap; the amount, type and value of the debt treated; the price of sale to investors and the expense of the Republic of Burundi.

The Republic of Burundi was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2005 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point on 29 January 2009. In this context, the Republic of Burundi commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 11 March 2009, 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 Republic of Burundi’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 Republic of Burundi and creditor countries not listed in the Agreed Minutes dated 11 March 2009.

Consequently, the Republic of Burundi commits not to accord any category of creditors -and in particular creditor countries not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 11 March 2009, commercial banks, suppliers and bondholders- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.

Participating creditors

Observers

Press release