Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta will lead a high-level government delegation to China to lobby for the acceptance of the country’s debt forgiveness proposal with the Paris Club.
Ofori-Atta revealed to Svenja Schulze, a German minister, that China was engaged in a bilateral negotiation.
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The visit, scheduled for this week, is part of the government’s foreign debt restructuring process.
Ghana hopes to restructure $5. 7 billion of which China holds a third, or $1.7 billion.
“The big elephant in the room is China as in how they will comport themselves in the comparability of treatment because China wants to do bilateral. We would be visiting China by the end of the week to really discuss how they can envelope as quickly as possible,” Mr. Ofori Atta said.
The beleaguered minister also suggested that an agreement could be reached to allow Ghana to present its case to the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
For his part, Germany’s Federal Economic Cooperation Minister Svenja Schulze said the country would help Ghana get a fair deal at the Paris club.
Ghana is currently restructuring its domestic and external debt to access IMF support.
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On the back of this, Ghana’s bilateral lenders are discussing the establishment of a formal creditor committee, a necessary first step to enter into debt relief negotiations for the country.
The Paris Club of creditor countries contacted other bilateral creditors, such as China and India, to form a committee and decide who would chair it. China is Ghana’s largest bilateral creditor with $1.7 billion in debt, while Ghana owes Paris Club members $1.9 billion, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
