Sudan receives Ghana’s backing in debt-relief quest, minister says
April 22, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Ghana has pledged to support Sudan’s efforts to have its hefty external debt waived, Sudan’s official news agency (SUNA) reported on Friday, citing the country’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti.
Sudan’s top diplomat said, according to SUNA, that Mills had commended the Sudanese government’s “wisdom” in accepting the results of South Sudan’s referendum, which emerged massively in favor of secession.
Karti also said that Mills had promised to conduct contacts with influential international quarters to support efforts to consolidate peace in Sudan and write off the country’s external debt.
Sudan has been lobbying strenuously to secure regional and international support for its efforts to relieve the country’s external debts, which stands at about $35.7 billion, according to official figures.
North Sudan has recently offered to bear the country’s external debt after South Sudan, from which most of the country’s daily output of 500,000 barrels of oil is extracted, secedes in July.
In return, the north asked the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for inclusion in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program, which provides insolvent countries with debt relief and low-interest loans to cancel or reduce external debt repayments to sustainable levels.
(ST)