GAMBIA Debt Treatment - January 24, 2008

The Republic of The Gambia was declared eligible to the Enhanced HIPC initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2000 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point in December 2007. In this context, the Republic of The Gambia commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in these Agreed Minutes, 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 The Gambia’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 The Gambia and creditor countries not listed in these Agreed Minutes.

Consequently, the Republic of The Gambia commits not to accord any category of creditors -and in particular creditor countries not participating in these Agreed Minutes- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.

Participating creditors

Observers

Press release