Paris Club talks slated for next week

Paris Club talks slated for next week

JAKARTA: Indonesia will attend a preliminary round of talks
with the Paris Club of official creditors next week ahead of a
vital meeting in April where the government will seek to
reschedule around $6 billion of debt, an official said on
Wednesday.

Indonesia has said it was optimistic it would secure the debt
relief, crucial for helping bring down the budget deficit,
targeted at 2.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2002.

"These talks with member countries of the Paris Club are a
necessary step before the real meeting in April," Mahendra
Siregar, a senior economics ministry official, told Reuters.

Finance Minister Boediono and Chief Economics Minister
Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti will leave for Europe on Monday for the
week-long talks.

Indonesia's total public debts are estimated at a staggering
$136 billion, almost equal to its GDP. This includes some 659
trillion rupiah ($66.03 billion) in domestic debts, which stems
mainly from a massive bank bailout at the height of the Asian
financial crisis of the late 1990s.

The government has said the $6 billion of official foreign
debt it will seek to reschedule includes principal and interest
and will mature between April 2002 and December 2003. -- Reuters