Burundi wins $833 mln debt relief

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters)
Some $833 million of Burundi's foreign debt was canceled on Thursday under a global program to write off the debts of the world's poorest countries.

In a joint statement, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund said their executive boards had approved full debt relief for the landlocked Central African country, including money owed to the global financial institutions.

The move makes Burundi the 24th country to qualify for debt relief under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, a program first launched in 1996 launched by rich countries to ease the burdensome debts of poor nations.

The IMF and World Bank said the country would qualify for additional debt relief under the newer Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, agreed among the world's industrialized countries in 2005.

Burundi said in December it expects some $1.5 billion in total to be written off by creditors, which will save it between $40 million to $45 million a year in debt payments and help revive its economy after more than a decade of ethnic conflict.

"This confirms the quality of Burundi's fiscal and debt management as it emerges from conflict and continues toward economic and social recovery," said John McIntire, World Bank country director for Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Gary Crosse)