HAITI  Debt treatment -      July 8, 2009

Supporting agreements with the international institutions

Total external debt of the country

$1,885 million as of September 30, 2008

$215 million of which being due to Paris Club as of June 1, 2009

Amounts treated

$162 million of which $63 million being cancelled, of which $99 million being rescheduled

Accorded treatment

Debt cancellation following Haiti’s having reached its Completion Point under the enhanced initiative for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (enhanced HIPC Initiative) on June 30, 2009

Categories of debt treated

Treatment of arrears as of May 31, 2009

Treatment of the stock as of June 1, 2009

Repayment profile

Treatment under HIPC Initiative Exit terms

Paris Club creditors also committed on a bilateral and voluntary basis to cancel an additional USD 152 million. As a result of this agreement and additional bilateral efforts, the Republic of Haiti's debt to Paris Club creditors will be entirely cancelled.

Specific provisions

Possibility to conduct debt swaps

On a voluntary and bilateral basis, the Government of each participating creditor country or its appropriate institutions may sell or exchange, in the framework of debt for nature, debt for aid, debt for equity swaps or other local currency debt swaps:

(i) all ODA loans with the exception of loans administered by IDA and provided by the European Union member States;

(ii) the amounts of other outstanding credits, loans and consolidations with the exception of loans, up to 20% of the amounts of outstanding credits as of February 28, 1995 or up to an amount of 20 million dollars of the United States of America, whichever is higher.

Comparability of treatment provision

The Republic of Haiti was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2006 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point in June 2009. In this context, the Republic of Haiti commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in the Agreed Minutes, their appropriate contribution in terms of debt relief to the enhanced HIPC Initiative, on top of traditional debt relief mechanisms and consistent with the proportional burden sharing based on their relative exposure in net present value of total external debt at Decision Point after the full use of traditional debt relief mechanisms.

The appropriate nature of the debt relief provided will be assessed not only on the basis of the reduction in the net present value of the debt as computed under Appropriate Market Rate, but also on the terms of repayment of the debts not cancelled. For this purpose, all relevant elements will be taken into account, including the level of cash payments received by those creditors as compared to their share in the Republic of Haiti's external debt, the nature and characteristics of all treatment applied, including debt buy backs, and all characteristics of the reorganized claims and in particular their repayment terms whatever forms they take and in general the financial relations between the Republic of Haiti and creditor countries not listed in the Agreed Minutes.

Consequently, the Republic of Haiti commits not to accord any category of external creditors -and in particular creditor countries not participating in the Agreed Minutes, commercial banks, suppliers and bondholders- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.

Cut-off date

October 1, 1993

Organisation of the session

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Julien RENCKI, Vice-Chairman of the Paris Club

The head of the debtor country's delegation was Mr. Daniel DORSAINVIL, Minister of Economy and Finance

Participating creditors
  • BELGIUM
  • CANADA
  • DENMARK
  • FRANCE
  • GERMANY
  • ITALY
  • NETHERLANDS
  • SPAIN
  • UNITED KINGDOM
  • UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Observers
  • JAPAN
  • RUSSIAN FEDERATION
  • IMF
  • Inter-American Development Bank
  • World Bank