Posted by AFP on
Japan signed an agreement Tuesday to cancel ¥244 billion (2.1 billion dollars) in loans to Nigeria as part of an accord reached by the Paris Club of creditor nations last year.
Tokyo - Japan signed an agreement Tuesday to cancel ¥244 billion (2.1 billion dollars) in loans to Nigeria as part of an accord reached by the Paris Club of creditor nations last year.
Japan will scrap over half of Nigeria's bilateral debts of 457
billion yen, of which 94.4 billion is owned to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and 362.6 billion yen in trade insurance, the foreign ministry said.
Japan is the fourth biggest creditor to Nigeria after Britain which holds debt of 8.1 billion dollars, France with 5.8 billion dollars and Germany with five billion dollars as of October 2005, according to the foreign ministry.
In total the Paris Club of 19 creditor countries agreed last year to wipe clean two-thirds of Nigeria's 30 billion dollars in external debt.
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, has a population of more than 130 million, more than three-quarters of whom live on less than a dollar a day. - Sapa-AFP