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Zim's
external debt drops 2.3%
News24.com
October
02, 2006
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/0,,2-11-1662_2006952,00.html
Harare - Zimbabwe's external debt declined
by 2.3% after the southern African country paid a total US$169m
to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year, the central
bank said on Monday.
"Zimbabwe's total debt disbursed and
outstanding (including arrears) is estimated to have declined from
US$4 071m in 2004 to US$3 978m in December 2005, representing a
decrease of 2.3%," the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said in its
annual report.
"This mainly reflects resource payments
on public sector medium to long-term debt, particulary to the multilateral
financial institutions."
The government paid back a total of
US$176.3m in 2005, of which 95.6% ($169m) reduced the external payments
arrears to the IMF to $144.0m as at December 2005, the central bank
said.
The remaining $7m were paid to other
external creditors but the bank did not specify their identities.
It added that capital account improved
from a deficit of $234.1m in 2004 to a surplus of $2.7m in 2005.
The improvement in the capital account,
the bank said, has increased availability of short term financing
for grain and fuel imports.
Once a regional economic model Zimbabwe
is reeling from shortages of fuel and the staple grain.
Zimbabwe's economy has contracted by
more than a third over the past seven years with independent analysts
pegging unemployment at 80% although Harare insists that only 9%
of workers are without jobs.
The country is also battling record
inflation which reached a world record 1 204% in August.
President Robert Mugabe's government
blames the economic downturn on drought and sanctions imposed by
the EU and the United States following presidential elections in
2002 the opposition charged were rigged.
But critics attribute the decline to
controversial land reforms launched six years ago and saw government
seizing at least 4 000 farms from white farmers for redistribution
to landless blacks.
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