MR. KANYEGIRIE: Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Kanyegirire. I am with the Communications Team here with the IMF. Welcome to this press briefing with the African Finance Ministers here in Marrakech for the Annual Meetings. So, we have about 45 minutes. We have already eaten into some of the time, so we will have about 40 minutes. We will start with some opening remarks from the Ministers.
We are very delighted, we are very happy and want to thank the leaders of the OCC, that is China, France, South Africa, their Deputy Chairperson, and indeed all those that have encouraged us, the IMF, the World Bank, members of the G20, everyone. Well done. Thank you so much. So, on all of those points, we had an ambition, which was to go through the common framework. We were one of the first countries. We worked with our partners and donors, including the Paris Club, to create a process that was non-existent before and that has led to counter cyclical restructuring. It allows us to face any fluctuations in oil prices. In the past, we were facing constant reimbursement, even though our revenue was dependent on oil price fluctuations.
MR. MUSOKOTWANE: Thank you very much. Just a slight correction to start with. It has not taken three years. It has taken less than that. From the time when we started engaging to the time when we had the members of the Official Creditor Committee saying, yes, we give you the financial assurance, it took nine months. Of course, even that is on the long side.
On top of that, as part of those reform measures that I have talked about, given the huge land resources that Zambia has, we are opening up farm blocks, huge tracts of land where we are putting infrastructure like roads, power, develop water, and then encouraging our people, but also the corporate world.
MR. MUSOKOTWANE: As I said, this is really the first time that we are confronted with a situation of external debt different from what we used to have in the 80s. Because those days, I think, especially for Zambia, most of what we owed was to the multilateral institutions. Now most of what we owe was to bilaterals. And it is a learning process. For the lenders, it may have been lending process. For us, also a learning process.
So, in short, what I am saying is that we are to maintain or establish credibility among the creditors. We are to establish credibility among the donors. We are to establish credibility among our own citizens, that the savings that we are going to make out of this is money that is going to support the aspirations.
As to the second half of the question as to we would consider in the future oil backed loans. Look, that was no longer an option, although the loans we are talking about here were not that kind. That was a buyback of shares of an oil company. So, when you buy shares, you take the asset and then you pay with the proceeds. You pay back the debt with the proceeds of the assets.
MR. MUSOKOTWANE: Progress with the commercial creditors, all I can say is that we are heavily engaged with them, and we are pleased that at least on the Official Creditors, that is progressed a lot. And we believe this may leverage the discussions with the private creditors. Thank you. Now, we found ourselves in a situation where a large amount of the payments was concentrated in a short period of time, and that is what made it unsustainable. But in the longer term, the picture is quite different. And that is why the whole purpose was to extend the timetable, the payment schedule. As to commercial, that as the oil prices go up, the share, well, the debt burden becomes lighter because we share the surplus between the treasury and the payment of the debt.
MR. KANYEGIRIE: I think we have about eight minutes left. We can do another quick round. We will come back to this side. QUESTIONER: I work for Africa 24 TV Channel, and I have questions for both our guests. I will start with the Chadian Minister. Sir, in three years' time, the economy of your country has made huge headway from 2.1 percent in recession to plus 2.5 percent in 2022 and now we are looking at 4 percent growth.
MR. NGUILIN: Well, there was an improvement. I said so in the introduction. There was a macroeconomic positive development and that was brought about by a better business climate. It is easier to start a business in the country. You had companies that were in major trouble in 2018, 2017. They were reassured, they actually got loans, and they were able to invest, they were able to produce, they were able to hire.
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