. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/W/445
18 September 2001
(01-4463)
General Council Original: English
PREPARATIONS FOR THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Proposal for the Establishment of a Working Group for the Study of the
Inter-Relationship between Trade and Debt
Communication from Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe
The following communication, dated 31 July 2001, has been received from the Permanent
Mission of Pakistan.
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Rationale
1. In many developing countries, particularly so me low-income countries, the heavy debt burden
reduces their ability to develop an adequate supply response.
2. The external debt situation of the developing countries has considerably deteriorated since the
beginning of the 1990s. The debt overhang of th e heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) has not
been resolutely lifted, as the expected debt relief  from the HIPC initiative has been slow to come and
many poor indebted countries are excluded from the list of beneficiary countries. Difficultiesencountered by developing countries in serving their debt have increased with the recent decline in
commodity prices which is affecting the export growth prospects of HIPCs and other commodity-
dependent countries, particularly the low-income countries.
3. The debt burden can work through several different channels to reduce supply capacity. First,
a large debt overhang discourages private (foreign and domestic) investment which would help
alleviate the financing constraint. Second, heavy debt servicing requirements can create foreign
exchange liquidity because of the draft on fore ign exchange reserves, and reduce the ability of
governments to meet the basic requirements of publ ic expenditure in terms of providing for adequate
expenditure on education, health and public physical infrastructure. For some heavily indebted poorcountries, the HIPC Initiative may provide strong relief that may remove the debt constraint on
improving supply capacity. However, this is not the case for all low income developing countries.
4. Repeated reschedulings in the past have added to the amount of unpayable debt, as a result of
the capitalization of interest arrears. The servicing of debt absorbs budgetary and foreign exchangeresources, and in the absence of any benefits accruing from the investment of the original loan, will
have a net negative effect on a government’s ability to fund its social expenditure programme. At the
same time, high levels of debt service weaken the supply capacities of debtors as resources are
diverted away from productive investments.
5. Certain measures which could be taken in relevant international fora could include:WT/GC/W/445
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• There is an urgent need to expand the list of poor indebted countries eligible for debt
relief needs to be extended to include all low income countries.
• The length of the debt relief process needs to be shortened – from 6 to 3 years.
• While sustainable levels of debt should be repaid, the definition of what is sustainable
levels of debt should be repaid, the de finition of what is sustainable should be
relaxed, to ensure that the levels set are realistic.
• All ODA debts of poor heavily indebted and low income countries should be
cancelled, official bilateral debts should be reduced by a minimum of 80 per cent.
• The cost of relief should be met from partial sales of IMF gold, a fresh allocation of
Special Drawing Rights, and additional bilateral contributions to multilateral Trust
Funds for debt relief.
• Beyond debt relief, poor countries will need new concessional resource transfers to
achieve sustainable growth. Debt relief, therefore, should not be given at the expenseof ODA.
• Effective debt management needs to be further strengthened in indebted countries.
Proposal
6. To ensure that the developing countries, many of which are faced with acute debt problems,
are able to benefit from trade liberalization. We would propose that a Working Group in the WTO
should be established at the Fourth Ministerial Conference to inter alia :
(a) Study various implications of debt on  the capacity of developing countries to take
advantage of the trade liberalization and to suggest remedial measures and
appropriate flexibilities to be developed to ensure that once a country is faced with a
specific level of debt, it should not be required to implement particular agreements
including maintenance of market access under GATT and GATS.
(b) The Working Group could also look into the establishment of a mechanism to “swap”
debt for financing the development of the supply capacity:  some ODA debts could be
transformed into investments for productive industries of the indebted country,
particularly in the sectors that have been liberalized by that country.
(c) Relationship between the debt burden of developing countries and flexibility for
imposition or maintenance of export restrictions under GATT and GATS.
(d) Establish debt thresholds beyond which augmented Special and Differential treatment
provisions would automatically become operative.
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