Chad creditors to meet this week, IMF’s Georgieva calls on Glencore to ‘step forward’

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Chad’s official creditor committee will meet this week amid growing pressure from the International Monetary Fund and others for progress on its request for debt restructuring, two sources briefed on the matter said.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told Reuters the key issue was coming to agreement with Glencore on what the African country’s current debt restructuring needs, given a jump in oil prices this year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Chad in January 2021 become the first country to request a restructuring of its $3 billion external debt under the Common Framework agreed by the Group of 20 major economies and the Paris Club of official creditors.

It struck a deal with creditor nations in June 2021, but has struggled to finalize talks with private creditors. Chad owes one third of its external debt burden to commercial creditors, and almost all of that to Glencore in oil-for-cash deals dating back to 2013 and 2014.

“The issue there really is to settle on, what exactly is the debt restructuring need, and, frankly, to get Glencore to move. We need them to step forward,” Georgieva said.

A spokesperson for Glencore did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

(By Andrea Shalal and Rachel Savage; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

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