Côte d'Ivoire signs a new debt reduction contract with France

French Minister Bruno Le Maire on September 8 in Paris.

AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In Paris, Adama Coulibaly, the Ivorian Minister of the Economy and Finance, and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire, signed the third “ 

” in favor of Côte d'Ivoire.

A mechanism specific to France which allows the debt to be converted into a donation.

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1.4 billion euros, or 751 billion CFA francs, this is the sum that Côte d'Ivoire will not reimburse to France next year, in respect of its pre-2012 debt. This money will be deposited on an account of the French Development Agency then marked with projects deemed priority by the Ivorian government, in agreement with France: training and employment of young people, urban development, agriculture and the preservation of biodiversity . Without forgetting the strengthening of the governance of public institutions.

Bilateral debt is therefore transformed into a grant.

A mechanism invented by the French authorities twenty years ago, during the global debt relief of heavily indebted poor countries, or HIPCs.

These “debt reduction and development contracts” with Paris have benefited eighteen countries, foremost among them Cameroon, Congo, and therefore, Côte d'Ivoire.

For the latter country, it is an oxygen bubble: this year it is bending under the growing weight of the service of its debt, mostly contracted from the private global financial market.

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• Ivory Coast