LatinNews Daily - 20 November 2024

*Suriname’s finance minister, Stanley Raghoebarsing, has announced a debt rescheduling agreement with China with the media reporting that the first repayments would come this year. Suriname owes China’s Export-Import Bank (Exim), a state-owned bank, some US$476m, of which US$140m is in arrears, according to debt management office data from mid-2024 cited by Reuters. Malty Dwarkasing, the head of the debt management office, also told Reuters that payments to Exim would be rescheduled in two phases, with Suriname’s debt to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), a state-owned banking and financial services company, to be repaid in one tranche. Suriname owed US$68m to the ICBC as of end June, according to the same Reuters report. The announcement follows a visit to China in April by Suriname’s President Chandrikapersad Santokhi who met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The announcement regarding the agreement with China follows an agreement reached on 8 October by the group of creditor countries under the Paris Club on the conditions of the second phase of the restructuring of Suriname’s external public debt; in June 2022 they had similarly rescheduled some of Suriname’s payments. According to the Paris Club, the total stock of Suriname’s external debt was estimated to be US$2.69bn, as of 31 December 2023, and the stock of debt owed to Paris Club creditors was estimated to be US$88m.