Overall, short term debt and total debt service also declined.

At that point, a stock of debt operation in the Paris Club would also take effect, i.e., reduction of the stock of debt.

For starters, when it comes to public debt, there is a big difference between the gross and net figures. While Japan s gross public debt, for example, is a massive 246 of GDP, the net figure, accounting for intra government debts, is 127 of GDP.

Latin American debt indicators generally indicated a sustainable debt position for the region as a whole, with a debt service ratio of 12 per cent, debt stock to exports and to GNP ratios of 103 per cent and 43 per cent respectively, and a short term debt to reserves ratio of 71 per cent.

Figure II.2 Total unliquidated obligations

Debt rate ( GNP)

Public and publicly guaranteed debt continued to account for the major share of long term debt, at 83 per cent of the total, but the volume of private non guaranteed debt accelerated by 18 per cent and its share rose from 15 per cent in 1996 to 17 per cent of the total.

His delegation therefore supported the application of the debt burden adjustment based on the debt stock approach.

The bulk of that amount comprised long term debt (80 per cent), while short term debt accounted for 18 per cent of the total.

For the HIPCs, the debt structure is overwhelmingly public and publicly guaranteed, which accounted for 80 per cent of total external debt at end 1996.

Arrears as a share of total debt

The debt indicators show what would be expected to be a sustainable debt position.1 The debt service ratio measured 13 per cent, the debt stock to exports ratio 114 per cent, the debt stock to GNP ratio 31 per cent, and short term debt to foreign exchange reserves ratio 53 per cent as noted, however, those figures obscure diverse trends at the country level.

The unliquidated obligations charged during the last month of the fiscal year constituted 80 per cent of the total of unjustified unliquidated obligations.

The unliquidated obligations charged during the last month of the fiscal year constituted 80 per cent of the total of unjustified unliquidated obligations.

However, members of the Committee had divergent views on the validity of the adjustment and on its application, with some members favouring a debt flow approach in place of the debt stock approach currently utilized.

Total debt relief accorded to the 27 countries that have reached either the decision point or the completion point, together with other debt relief measures, represents a two thirds reduction in these countries' overall debt stock.

As a group, those countries debt burden remains severe, with a debt stock to export ratio of well over 300 per cent (far above the 200 per cent threshold used to indicate a debt overhang) and a debt stock to GNP ratio of 127 per cent in 1996 after several years of improvement.

With total short term obligations estimated at 68.4 billion,14 the package thus covered 88 per cent of those obligations.

The external debt of SSA amounts to roughly 10 per cent of the total debt owed by developing countries to official creditors.

Large scale rescheduling and write offs reduced Egypt s external debt stock by 15 billion between 1987 and 1996.

A suggestion was made to expand the information required to be contained in the notification, so as to include information on the total value of the debts and assets of the debtor.

There have been reductions in the ratios of debt to gross national income and debt service to export earnings since 2000, due to strenuous efforts at repayment by developing countries and some debt relief.

So this is a projection of U.S. debt as a percentage of our overall economy, of GDP.

12. Africa continued to experience a high debt burden despite a fall in total external debt of 2 per cent to 324 billion in 1996 and an improvement in its debt indicators.

This led to increased concern about the levels of internal debt and total debt and the implications for servicing the debt.

In addition to estimating financing gaps and identifying the sources of financing (including different scenarios of debt rescheduling), DSA includes an analysis of debt dynamics to determine the stability of debt to GDP or debt to government revenue ratios.

4. Debt indicators improved for developing countries overall during the year, with marginal declines in the ratios of debt service to exports and debt stock to gross national product (GNP) and a larger fall in the ratio of the stock of debt outstanding to total exports (see table 1), largely reflecting the rapid growth of developing country exports, which rose by six per cent during the year.

(a) The indebtedness of African countries was the major constraint (some countries pay out 50 per cent of their export earnings for servicing interest on debt, and their stock of debt to GDP is more than twice the average of other indebted developing countries)

The stock of these arrears stood at 62.2 billion in 1995, corresponding to about 28 per cent of the debt stock.

At HIPC completion point in June 1999, when formal cancellation is to take place, Mozambique s total debt stock in net present value terms is to fall from over US 7 billion to US 1.1 billion.

Total Liabilities

The debt to GNP and debt to export ratios remain high, about three and a half times those for the developing countries as a whole.

As at 31 December 1997, the total outstanding debt was estimated to be US 2.388 billion with the multilateral component accounting for about US 1.277 billion, or 53.4 per cent.

IMF requested that the Government desist from repaying any debt until the entire quantum of debt is determined and rescheduled and the repayments are prioritized. (See table 7.

Uganda, which had received a stock treatment in 1995 (with a reduction of 67 per cent) had a topping up to 80 per cent (i.e., its debt was further reduced to reach the equivalent of 80 per cent reduction).

As repeated reschedulings involve costs for the debtor countries and contribute to further accumulation of debt, the concept of reduction of the stock of debt (instead of the flows of debt service) was introduced by the Paris Club in 1994 and allowed for an exit from a repeated cycle of debt reschedulings.

Also expresses its concern that the level of implementation and the reduction of the overall debt stock under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative are still low, and that the Initiative is not intended to offer a comprehensive solution to the long term debt burden

An approach along the same lines was taken by the United States General Accountability Office, which had calculated the amount of the overall additional assistance needed to help to achieve economic growth and sustainable debt targets of heavily indebted poor countries.

Holders of both state and federal bonds were thus offered a basket of long dated bonds, some with an interest rate of 3 , and others with 6 (with a ten year grace period). The basket was designed in such a way as to result in an average debt service cost of 4 .

The goal was to improve the technical evaluation of prospective vendors so that the missions could rely on expertise within the United Nations system and to apply a consistent approach in technical evaluation.

The budget deficit stood at more than 50 per cent and public debt at almost 90 per cent of GDP.

However, because of improved economic performance in the debtor countries, the overall ratio of debt to exports and the ratio of external debt to gross domestic product had declined to their lowest levels since the onset of the debt crisis.

The bulk of them are in Africa and, in 1996, they accounted for some 12 per cent of total developing country debt, but for only about 3 per cent and 5 per cent of total developing countries GNP and exports, respectively.

Noting with concern the continuing debt and debt servicing problems of heavily indebted developing countries as constituting an element that adversely affects their development efforts and economic growth, and stressing the importance of alleviating once and for all, where applicable, their onerous debt and debt service burden with the aim of attaining a sustainable level of debt and debt service,

In that event, and notwithstanding the view of some members that the overall level of debt itself constituted a significant burden, the Committee also agreed that the adjustment should be based on data on actual principal repayments, rather than on a proportion of debt stocks, as in the current scale of assessments.