TOGO Debt Treatment - December 16, 2010

Paris Club creditors also expressed their intention to grant additional debt relief on a bilateral basis for an amount of USD 404 million.

As a result of this agreement and additional bilateral efforts, the Togolese Republic's debt to Paris Club creditors will be reduced by 95%.

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) the amounts of outstanding loans and consolidations as regards ODA debts;

(ii) the amounts of other outstanding credits, loans and consolidations, up to 10% of the amounts of outstanding loans, credits and consolidations as of 30 June 1992 or up to an amount of 20 million of dollars of the United States of America, whichever is higher.

The Togolese Republic was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2008 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point in December 2010. In this context, the Togolese Republic commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 16 December 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 Togolese Republic’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 Togolese Republic and all their other creditors.

Consequently, the Togolese Republic commits not to accord any category of external creditors -and in particular litigating creditors, creditor countries not participating in the Agreed Minutes dated 16 December 2010, commercial banks, suppliers and bondholders- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.

Participating creditors

Observers

Press release