{"id":36121,"date":"2022-12-09T23:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane"},"modified":"2022-12-10T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T10:44:07","slug":"zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane","title":{"rendered":"Zambia on track for debt restructuring next quarter -Dr Musokotwane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>Zambia is pushing hard to complete the restructuring of nearly $15 billion of external debt in the first quarter of 2023 and is \u201cin active engagement\u201d with its largest bilateral creditor China, Zambia\u2019s finance minister said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference.<\/p>\n

Zambia defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2020 and the current government, which took power last year, has been on a quest to restructure its loans and rebuild an economy ravaged by mismanagement under previous administrations and COVID-19.<\/p>\n

In August, Zambia won International Monetary Fund (IMF) approval for $1.3 billion, three-year loan programme to help it restructure debts which the government said stood at $14.87 billion at the end of June 2022.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane told Reuters China had sought clarification from the Zambian government and the IMF on their debt agreement, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese… are asking (for) a number of clarifications, which us and the IMF are providing them,\u201d Musokotwane said.<\/p>\n

China wants more clarity on the IMF assumptions on which the loan programme is based, he said, since these are meant to form the basis of the restructuring negotiations between Zambia and all its creditors.<\/p>\n

An IMF spokesperson said China and other official creditors have had a number of technical questions since its staff report and Debt Sustainability Analysis for Zambia\u2019s programme request were published.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis technical due diligence is currently ongoing. Fund staff is trying to facilitate that process so that technical issues can be resolved and negotiations can continue to progress,\u201d the spokesperson told Reuters.<\/p>\n

TEST CASE<\/b><\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s much-delayed debt restructuring is seen by analysts as a test case for what are expected to be a spate of defaults in poorer countries that have borrowed heavily not only in the capital markets but also from countries including China.<\/p>\n

IMF strategy chief Ceyla Pazarbasioglu said Zambia\u2019s debt restructuring was the real test case for the Common Framework, set up in late 2020 by the Group of 20 major economies.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2021, Chinese creditors accounted for almost $6 billion of Zambia\u2019s external debt, which was then $17.27 billion. Zambia\u2019s government said earlier this month that the Export-Import Bank of China (EximBank) was representing China on the bilateral \u2018official creditors committee\u2019.<\/p>\n

Asked whether EximBank was also representing Chinese commercial creditors, Musokotwane said EximBank is \u201cthe lead negotiator for the Chinese interests\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s Chinese creditors include commercial banks such as Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Jiangxi Bank and China Minsheng Bank. China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musokotwane added private creditors were cooperating well in debt relief discussions and there had been a bondholder meeting this week.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s government said in October it needs a present value debt reduction by 2027 of $6.3 billion, or 49% of the debt being restructured, to meet IMF targets, a level some international bondholders have previously said would be unacceptable.<\/p>\n

COPPER MINING<\/b><\/p>\n

Musokotwane also said he hoped to make an announcement by the first quarter of next year about potential new investors in Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) and Mopani Copper Mines (MCM).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hoping that by first quarter of next year we should be there with some of them. And also some of the new investments that are coming from the U.S. and other places,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s previous government put KCM into liquidation in 2019, triggering a legal dispute with its parent company, Vedanta Resources, that is now being settled out of court.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s state-owned mining company ZCCM Investments Holdings took over Mopani in 2021 from commodities giant Glencore which mothballed its operations in 2020 due to weak copper prices.<\/p>\n

The government is aiming to treble copper production to 3 million tonnes per year within the next decade in Africa\u2019s second largest producer of the mineral.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Zambia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. Zambia is pushing hard to complete the restructuring of nearly $15 billion of external debt in the first quarter of 2023 and is \u201cin active engagement\u201d with its largest bilateral creditor China, Zambia\u2019s finance minister said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference. Zambia defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2020 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":36120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,248],"tags":[234,235,233],"class_list":["post-36121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-to-homepage","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zambia","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"\nZambia on track for debt restructuring next quarter -Dr Musokotwane - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zambia is pushing hard to complete the restructuring of nearly $15 billion of external debt in the first quarter of 2023 ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zambia on track for debt restructuring next quarter -Dr Musokotwane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zambia is pushing hard to complete the restructuring of nearly $15 billion of external debt in the first quarter of 2023 ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-12-09T23:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-12-10T10:44:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/12\/postQueueImg_1670615423.24.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"557\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Zambia on track for debt restructuring next quarter -Dr Musokotwane\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-12-09T23:20:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-12-10T10:44:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\"},\"wordCount\":651,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/12\/postQueueImg_1670615423.24.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zambia\",\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"to-homepage\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/zambia-on-track-for-debt-restructuring-next-quarter-dr-musokotwane\",\"name\":\"Zambia on track for debt restructuring next quarter -Dr Musokotwane - 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