DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Debt Treatment - November 17, 2010

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:

(i) all ODA loans with the exception of loans;

(ii) the amounts of other outstanding credits, loans and consolidations with the exception of loans, up to 20% of the amounts of outstanding credits as of 30 June 2009 or up to an amount of 20 million dollars of the United States of America, whichever is higher. 

The Democratic Republic of the Congo was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2003 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point in July 2010. In this context, the Democratic Republic of the Congo commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 17 November 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo'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 Democratic Republic of the Congo and creditor countries not listed in the Agreed Minutes dated 17 November 2010.

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

Participating creditors

Observers

Press release