http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/2974880.stm
India to scrap poor countries' debts
India's government has said it is to write off $20m (£12m) of debt
owed by some of the world's poorest countries.
It will give the debt relief to seven heavily indebted poor
countries (HIPC) - Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Guyana, Nicaragua,
Ghana and Uganda.
The move is part of a package known as the India Development
Initiative that Finance Minister Jaswant Singh unveiled earlier
this year.
Its implementation comes just days after India's Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee criticised the rich world's shaky progress on
tackling world poverty and lowering trade barriers.
'Solidarity pact'
Mr Vajpayee made his criticisms alongside those of African leaders
at the G8 summit of top industrialised nations in Evian, France, in
early June, which developing countries attended as guests of the
G8.
Anti-poverty campaigners have welcomed India's decision as likely
to bring significant economic and political benefits to the
seven.
"Every single additional dollar that the African countries have to
spend on their development brings positive benefits," Ashok Sinhar,
UK national co-ordinator of the Jubilee 2000 debt-relief campaign,
told BBC World Service Radio.
The costs of "providing basic medicine, the costs of essential
shelter, even roofing a school" were very little, so $20m could go
a long way, he said.
He said India had also made a politically important gesture to show
it was "standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the world's
poorest nations" and put pressure on richer nations to meet their
promises.
"There are a lot of countries, including G8 countries, which have
still not completed their own commitments towards full write-off of
the debts that African countries owe to them," he said.
Growth
India's economy has been performing relatively well, with growth of
about 5% a year and substantial foreign exchange reserves being
built up.
Mr Singh has said India's strong economic fundamentals and good
debt repayment record have set the stage for "explosive growth"
which could pull India into the developed world by 2020.
India's growth rate slowed to about 5% a year between 2000 and
2002, down from more than 7% during the mid to late 1990s.
