Vladimir Putin: Let’s solve Afghan debt

Vladimir Putin has urged the international community to join the Russian Federation, Afghanistan’s largest creditor, in solving this country’s debt problem. The move from the Russian President follows Hamid Karzai’s plea on January 31^st for debt relief.

Photo: Vladimir Putin: Let’s solve Afghan debt

Vladimir Putin declared that Afghanistan faces many challenges in its attempt to build a sustainable free-market economy and “one of these challenges is the heavy debt burden inherited by the democratic government”.

To help Afghanistan to develop and to free its economic resources for the building process, Vladimir Putin declared that “The Russian Federation being the largest creditor of Afghanistan intends to settle the debt Afghanistan owes to the Government of the Russian Federation, on a multilateral basis in the context of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, through the Paris Club process and subject to our respective domestic legal requirements”.

If Afghanistan implements the conditions of the HIPC Initiative successfully, this “would result in a 100% cancellation of its debt towards the Russian Federation”, declared the Russian President.

For Vladimir Putin, the Government of Afghanistan could facilitate this process by “promoting trade and economic cooperation with the companies of creditor countries on a non-discriminatory basis”.

“The solution of the debt problem will strongly contribute to ever broader development of Afghanistan’s trade, economic and investment cooperation with its major creditors and with the rest of the world,” declared Vladimir Putin, adding that “We urge all other bilateral creditors to join us in this crucial effort”.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey