Zambia assesses its debt in bid to get IMF to restart talks on support package
Zambia is shelving projects that are not almost complete and will renegotiate loans, as it seeks to contain ballooning debt and entice the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restart talks on a support package. The IMF has warned that the Southern African nation is at high risk of debt distress, while investors have grown sceptical about the amount of external loans the country claims it has incurred, saying it may be significantly more than the $9.3bn announced. Eurobonds of Zambia have been the worst performers in 2018. "We did a three-week deep dive into our debt sustainability assessment, we know what debt we have and also we have shared the facts and figures with the IMF," Zambian finance minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said in an interview in her office in Lusaka, on Thursday. "We have reached a situation where we have given them everything that they require with the possibility of re-engaging." Zambia approached the multilateral lender in 2014 after a plunge in copper prices hi...
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