Summary: | This document presents the different debt-reduction measures from which Niger has benefited since 1983. The country had a sizeable debt with commercial banks, resulting from the development of the uranium mining. Thus, to reschedule its public debt, Niger regularly resorted to both the London Club and the Paris Club. Besides these traditional measures, Niger was the first country to benefit from the IDA Debt-reduction Fund to allow it to use grants to buy back its debt at a discount. Despite the reduction produced by this process and from the application of the Toronto terms by the Paris Club which in 1991 together accounted for the maximum reduction possible by the usual procedures, the Niger government can still not meet its obligations. The adjustment policy and in particular the attempt to clean up public finances, have not resulted in rebalancing the budget in a country where the level of direct taxation is the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and where tax receipts have continued ...
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