O.P.E.C. aid to poor countries

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 9

O.P.E.C. aid to poor countries

NZPA-Reuter Vienna Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Finance Ministers have agreed to make more money available to developing countries. The Ministers said that loans made by O.P.E.C. members to the developing countries would not be repaid to the lending countries. but would remain available for development through O.P.E.C.’s special fund. A statement after a oneday meeting of Ministers from O.P.EC- said repayments to the 52400 M special fund would not go back to individual O.P.E.C. countries but would be recycled

through the fund. This would mean that the repayments would be available for Other developing countries. O.P.E.C.’s secretary-gen-eral (Mr Rene Ortiz) said after the meeting that the Ministers had not discussed the falling value of the dollar. Mr Ortiz said the Ministers had discussed various proposals to reform the international monetary system.

One proposal, he said, was for a “substitution account” into which States would pay surplus dollars and withdrawn special drawing rights, the reserve unit of the International Monetary Fund.