WASHINGTON
\nThe International Monetary Fund\u2019s executive board has approved the extension of $115 million in debt relief to 25 eligible low-income countries from January 11 to April 13 next year in an effort to help them ride out pandemic-induced headwinds.
\nApproval of the fifth and final tranche of debt service relief from the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) brings the total two-year Covid-related debt relief since April 2020 to $964m, the Washington-based lender said in a statement. The four previous tranches were approved on April 13, 2020, October 2, 2020, and April 1 and October 6 this year.
\n\u201cThis helps free up scarce financial resources for vital health, social and economic support to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,\u201d the fund said.
\nThe damage from the Covid-19 pandemic has been greater than that from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, most notably in Africa and South Asia, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Renewed international support is needed for developing countries facing the threat of a \u201clost decade\u201d amid an uneven global economic recovery, the fund said in September.
\nThe recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic remains \u201chobbled\u201d and the world economy could sustain as much as $5.3 trillion in losses over the next five years if the vaccine divide is not reduced, the IMF said.
\nGlobal debt soared to $226tn last year, the largest one-year debt surge since the Second World War. Global debt rose by 28 percentage points to 256 per cent of gross domestic product in 2020, according to the lender\u2019s latest update of its Global Debt Database.
\nIn March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF\u2019s managing director, began an urgent fundraising effort to raise $1.4 billion in grants to help the CCRT provide debt relief for up to a maximum of two years, while leaving the trust sufficiently funded for future needs.
\nSo far, donors have pledged contributions totalling about $852m. These donors included the EU, the UK, Japan, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, Greece, China, Mexico, the Philippines, Sweden, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Malta and Indonesia, the IMF said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON The International Monetary Fund\u2019s executive board has approved the extension of $115 million in debt relief to 25 eligible low-income countries from January 11 to April 13 next year in an effort to help them ride out pandemic-induced headwinds. Approval of the fifth and final tranche of debt service relief from the Catastrophe Containment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-234253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\n