PARIBAS PLAN TO ADJUST ECUADOR LOAN TERMS OPPOSED
Banque Paribas, which arranged a 220
mln dlr loan for Ecuador last year to pre-finance oil exports,
wants to adjust the terms of the facility to help the country
recover from a devastating earthquake, bankers said.
    But the French bank's plan, which would effectively
postpone repayment of about 30 mln dlrs of the loan for several
months, is running into stiff resistance from many of the 52
members of the loan syndicate.
    The pipeline that carries all Ecuador's oil exports was
ruptured in the March 5 tremor and will take about five months
to repair at a cost of some 150 mln dlrs.
    President Leon Febres Cordero on Friday estimated total
damage caused by the quake at one billion dlrs and said that as
a result Ecuador would maintain January's suspension of
interest payments on its foreign commercial bank debt.
    Payments were halted in January because of the drop in the
price of oil, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of Ecuador's
export earnings and 60 pct of government revenue.
    Many banks in the Paribas facility, although sympathetic to
Ecuador's plight, feel that emergency financial relief is a job
for international financial organisations and not for
commercial banks, bankers said.
    The 18-month oil-financing facility, which was signed last
October 28, is one of the few purely voluntary credits for a
Latin American nation since the region's debt crisis erupted in
August 1982.
    Because it was a voluntary deal, many bankers feel strongly
that the orginal terms must be adhered to. Otherwise, they
fear, the gradual re-establishment of normal market conditions
for Latin borrowers will be set back.
    "There's a lot of reluctance by the other banks. They feel
it's a different facility, and so any kind of suggestion of a
restructuring would look bad," one banker said.
 REUTER
