Zambia on debt restructuring

LUSAKA — Zambia, the first African nation to default in the pandemic era, has done what it needs to start restructuring talks over as much as $17.3 billion of external debt, and now needs creditors to participate, according to the country’s finance minister.

The southern African nation is using the so-called Common Framework that the Group of 20 designed to assist poor countries to revamp unsustainable debts as the Covid-19 pandemic hit their economies.

Zambia was one of the first to adopt it, but progress has stalled as the government of Africa’s second-biggest copper producer waits for official creditors to form a negotiating committee.—