BANKERS HOPEFUL ON PHILIPPINE DEBT TALKS
The Philippines and its commercial bank
advisory committee will resume talks tomorrow on what bankers
hope will be the final leg of negotiations for a 9.4 billion
dlr debt rescheduling package.
    Bankers, attending the Inter-American Development Bank
annual meeting here, said the two sides are still working on a
plan that embraces Manila's proposal to pay interest partly
with Philippine investment notes (PIN) instead of cash.
    One senior banker said he hoped that final agreement would
be reached this week but cautioned that a number of major
issues are still outstanding.
    The senior banker said that the remaining issues include
interest rates and the exact form of the investment notes plan.
    However, bankers did not anticipate any accounting problems
for this novel interest payment method.
    Deputy U.S. Comptoller of the Currency Robert Bench said
last week that U.S. bank regulators also had no objection in
principle to the PINs concept because Manila has guaranteed
their ready conversion into cash.
 Reuter
