§ Mrs. SpelmanTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what discussions she has had with developing country Governments during the last six months regarding definitions of debt sustainability; [53658]
(2) how her Department defines debt sustainability. [53659]
§ Clare ShortThere is no single definition of debt sustainability, which can be applied to all developing countries. For the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC), the international community has agreed two transparent thresholds: the net present value (NPV) of external debt should be below 150 per cent. of export earnings and 250 per cent. of Government revenues.
We regularly discuss these issues with developing countries. We have also funded two meetings this year at which representatives from the HIPC countries debated these issues and fed their views into the on-going evaluation of the HIPC initiative by the Operations Evaluation Department of the World bank.