Britain announces to write off poor nation's debt

Britain announced Sunday it would unilaterally write off its share of debts owed to the World Bank by the world's poorest countries.

The announcement was made by Chancellor of the Exchequer GordonBrown in a speech to some 400 debt-relief and fair-trade activistsin the southern England city of Brighton, where the Labor Party isholding its annual conference.

Briton holds about 10 percent of the total debt owed to the World Bank and other development banks.

He said "although there is no international agreement on 100 percent multilateral debt relief, Britain will do more."

"We will pay our share of the multilateral debt repayments of reforming low-income countries," he said.

"We will make payments in their stead to the World Bank and African Development Bank for the portion that relates to Britain'sshare of this debt," the chancellor added.

"We do this alone today but I urge other countries to follow sothat indebted countries are relieved of the burden of servicing all unpayable multilateral debt."

Experts said his move will put pressure on other major creditors such as the US, Japan and Germany to follow suit at meetings of the IMF and World Bank next week.

France and Canada are already understood to be planning similarannouncements.

Source: Xinhua