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Debt Relief

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development (Hilary Benn) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. In my Written Statement of 5 July, I said that 20 heavily indebted poor countries had had 100 per cent of their debts to the IMF cancelled in January 2006, and another, Cameroon, since. I wish to clarify that in January the IMF cancelled 100 per cent of the debt stock held by 19 countries (including 17 HIPCs, 13 of which were African) and has cancelled 100 per cent of the debt stock of two other HIPCs—Cameroon and Mauritania—since. Twenty-one countries have now therefore received 100 per cent debt stock cancellation at the IMF.