Peru Would Link Debt Payments to Trade
LIMA, Peru — Outgoing President Fernando Belaunde Terry has suggested linking foreign debt repayments of countries in Latin America’s Andean region to the world prices of the commodities they produce.
He told reporters that the region should repay its debt, estimated at more than $65 billion, in an Andean peso currency pegged to commodity export prices.
“My formula is that the Andean peso should be based on the the prices of the region’s raw materials,†he said. “When these materials fall, then our obligations would also fall.â€
“The hope is that all the debt would be transformed into debt (denominated) in Andean pesos.â€
An Andean peso was launched last December as an artificial currency unit to settle trade bargains between countries in the Andean Pact, a loose economic grouping made up of Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia.
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