India has written off the debts of all the highly indebted poor countries.

The Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Ministerial Network is another South South cooperation effort.

Today, more than 80 per cent of African States were highly indebted poor countries.

As a result, it has never been included in programmes such as HIPC for highly indebted countries.

To reverse this trend, the international community must address debt sustainability in highly indebted and low income countries, particularly in Africa.

Noting with concern that some highly indebted, middle income developing countries are facing serious difficulties in meeting their external debt servicing obligations,

Fourthly, debt relief has been limited to those highly indebted poor countries which have satisfied International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions for disbursements.

17. Recognizes the difficulties of highly indebted middle income developing countries and other highly indebted middle income countries in meeting their external debt and debt servicing obligations, and notes the serious situation in some of them in the context, inter alia, of significant liquidity constraints, which may require debt treatment, including, as appropriate, debt reduction measures

More specifically, in highly indebted countries and least developed countries (LDCs), the conviction that reform is needed does not always translate into concrete action.

She welcomed recent G8 commitments to write off the multilateral debt of highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs) and to double their ODA by 2010.

Noting with concern that some other highly indebted low and middle income developing countries are facing serious difficulties in meeting their external debt servicing obligations,

Invites the Bretton Woods institutions to consider the issue of debt sustainability and the implications of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative for Haiti

Spain has also adopted measures on foreign debt that will enable our country to participate actively in multilateral debt cancellation initiatives for highly indebted poor countries.

Noting with concern that some highly indebted middle income developing countries are facing serious difficulties in meeting their external debt servicing obligations owing, inter alia, to liquidity constraints,

However, there are elements on which to build, such as progress in macroeconomic stability and economic governance and the possibility of a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative.

The Asian and other financial crises brought to the fore some new dimensions to the debt problems of developing countries, particularly for the middle income, highly indebted countries.

The recent decision of the Group of 8 (G 8) to cancel the external debt of 18 highly indebted poor countries, including 13 least developed countries, is a welcome move.

While some of our countries have benefited from debt relief strategies including the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative that has not as yet resulted in debt sustainability in the region.

Furthermore, the higher oil prices were affecting the productivity and competitiveness of many oil importing countries and lowering the GDP of the highly indebted poor countries, especially in sub Saharan Africa.

We welcome the increase in debt relief, including debt cancellation, for many of the most highly indebted poor countries, as well as the renewed focus on Africa and on HIV AIDS.

We equally laud and welcome the initiative of the G 8 to cancel 100 per cent of the debt of the highly indebted poor countries, 14 of which are in Africa.

Spain is also engaging with highly indebted middle income countries in projects to swap debt for public investment in key areas for sustainable human development, such as education, the environment and infrastructure.

Finally, I wish to reiterate that the Caribbean Community welcomes the recent announcement by the Group of Eight aimed at reducing the debt of some of the most highly indebted countries in the world.

We are gratified at the decision taken in Gleneagles, Scotland, by the Group of Eight (G 8) to completely cancel the debt of 18 highly indebted poor countries, 13 of which are least developed countries.

On this auspicious occasion, my delegation expresses sincere appreciation for all initiatives recently taken to address the needs of developing countries, especially the debt cancellation extended by the G 8 countries to highly indebted poor countries.

Against this backdrop, India has consistently supported proposals in the United Nations to convert into grants all remaining official bilateral debt of the poorest African countries and has supported the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative.

Three Paths for Indebted Democracies

The High level Plenary Meeting had rightly underscored the need to find ways of dealing with the problems of middle income, yet, highly indebted developing countries, forced to choose between their own social development plans and their international obligations.

India, as a member of the G 20, will continue to promote in the WTO and elsewhere the interests of all developing countries, including the small island developing States, the least developed, the landlocked and the highly indebted poor countries.

In Saudi Arabia, the most highly indebted country of the Gulf Cooperation Council, total government debt increased to some 75 per cent of GDP in 2003 however, only some 23 per cent of total debt is owed to external creditors.

While that initiative was highly important, we hope that it will be broadened ever further to cover the wider area of the foreign debt burden that weighs heavily on all the indebted countries of Africa, including the medium income States.

As oil prices fall, households' real (inflation adjusted) income should rise, because they do not have to spend as much on fuel and heating. Lower oil prices make life easier, not harder, for highly indebted households in the US or the eurozone periphery.

Resolution of the external debt servicing problem through the early conclusion of an appropriate programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), aimed at redressing the current macroeconomic imbalance, which will grant the country access to the World Bank's Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

Progress under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative

Noting with concern the fact that some highly indebted, low and middle income developing countries continue to face serious difficulties in meeting their external debt servicing obligations, which constitutes an element that seriously constrains their efforts to ensure sustained economic growth and sustainable development,

Then there is the fact that correlation is not causation. In the case of Reinhart and Rogoff, the observation that highly indebted countries grow more slowly, even if true, does not tell us anything about whether high debt causes slow growth or vice versa.

Debt relief, particularly for the highly indebted poorest countries, in the framework of the relevant initiative of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is an important source of resource mobilization for the attainment of the development goals and the solution of social problems.

The General Assembly's decision to cancel debt arrears for several highly indebted poor countries was praised, yet participants noted that the quality and effectiveness of aid were equally important and that all official development assistance should be equally provided to all countries in need.

Heavily Indebted Poor Countries and the Millennium Development Goals

Turkey believes that heavily indebted countries deserve special attention.

In the 2005 summit outcome document, the international community also committed itself to promote a comprehensive and durable solution to the external debt problem of African countries, including through the cancellation of 100 per cent of multilateral debt for highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs), consistent with the G 8 proposal, and, on a case by case basis, significant debt relief for heavily indebted non HIPC African countries which have unsustainable debt burdens.

Back in 2010, creditor countries were concerned about contagion to the rest of the eurozone. If Grexit had succeeded, the entire monetary union would have come under threat, because investors would have wondered whether some of the eurozone s other highly indebted countries would have followed Greece s lead.

Indeed, that supposed solution leaves half the eurozone relegated to the status of Third World countries that have become highly indebted in a foreign currency. Instead of the International Monetary Fund, it is Germany that is acting as the taskmaster imposing tough fiscal discipline on them.

It may seem appalling to expect such a highly indebted country to continue to run deficits but the world is willing to finance the US at negative real interest rates. Indeed, the main international concern has been US policymakers reluctance to raise the government s debt ceiling!

Where do the European Union, the eurozone, and the EU s highly indebted countries go from here? Will Europe be able to roll back its welfare states biggest excesses without economic distress and social unrest toppling governments and, in the peripheral countries, undermining already tenuous agreements with creditors?