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July 09, 2008
Quito | Reuters
Ecuador will seek an agreement with its creditors in any process of restructuring the external debt undertaken by the Government, because it has no interest in creating economic turbulence in the market, said on Wednesday the new minister of Finance, Wilma Salgado.
The nationalist president Rafael Correa seeks to restructure more than 10,000 million dollars of foreign liabilities in the country to alleviate the budgetary burden of debt servicing and release resources to meet their popular social programs.
"I'm always in favour of negotiation, I like most agreements," Salgado said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday after assuming his post as head of the Finance portfolio.
Along these lines, assured that the restructuring undertaken by the country will be friendly, even in tranches of debt that may be declared "illegitimate" by the Ecuadorian Government, in seeking to improve conditions for loans.
"If after presenting evidence of irregularities (to creditors) there is scope for agreement is much better, it would be much better," said Salgado, an economist member of a group that promotes the cancellation of external debt to poor countries.
The position of the minister follows the policy of his predecessor Fausto Ortiz, whose departure for discrepancies with the Government on a controversial seizure of property to an economic group alarmed investors and caused a landslide in the Andean country's sovereign bonds.
Salgado said on the eve that he would defend the "life before debt" and warned that punished irregularities in the handling of credits, which renewed fears radicalization in a speech on government debt after the moderate and pragmatic policy Ortiz.
The Government is promoting an audit of foreign debt since last year to identify possible irregularities in its recruitment drive and seeks a renegotiation with creditors whose debt is rated as "illegitimate".
After preliminary studies, the commission has indicated that they have found irregularities in almost all tranches of debt, including the Global bonds, which bring together a capital of 3,800 million dollars.
Correa said that negate regarded as illegitimate loans or debt acquired by previous governments to which it regards as corrupt.
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