The Paris Club releases comprehensive data on its claims as of 31 December 2009

Since 2008, the Paris Club has published on an annual basis the amount of its claims on foreign countries.

This practice is intended to enhance transparency on debt data and to encourage all creditors, including non Paris Club bilateral and commercial creditors, to engage in a comprehensive debt reporting and disclosure process.

Information sharing is indeed at the heart of any cooperative approach to assess risks of debt distress in a reliable manner and to effectively solve debt problems in developing countries.

The table published on the Paris Club website shows the total amount of claims held by Paris Club members on each debtor country, with a split between Official Development Assistance (ODA) claims and non-Official Development Assistance claims.

The total of Paris Club claims, excluding late interest, amounts to USD 342.4 billion, of which USD 189.1 billion represent ODA claims and USD 153.3 billion represent non-Official Development Assistance claims.

Some amounts on which Paris Club creditors decided to provide 100% debt relief may still appear in this table for technical reasons, especially delays in the signing of bilateral agreements implementing Paris Club agreements, for example as regards claims on Burundi or Haiti. Since 1st January 2010, Paris Club creditors also decided to provide 100% debt relief to Afghanistan and the Republic of Congo.

Around 8.8% of Paris Club claims (roughly USD 30.1 billion) are owed by heavily indebted poor countries. The Paris Club intends to cancel most of these claims on countries that implement poverty-reducing and other economic reforms under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and through additional bilateral debt relief.

Around one third of the Paris Club claims (approximately USD 110.2 billion) are held on emerging market countries from Asia, Africa and South America that are members of the G20.