Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IX, Foreign Economic Policy

207. Letter From the Vice President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Wilson) to the Under Secretary of State (Ball)⁰

Washington, October 21, 1963.

Dear George:¹ Once or twice lately you have emphasised to George Woods and to me how important it is in your view that all the capital exporting countries should be fully aware of the indebtedness and debtservicing problems of the borrowing countries. You may be interested to know what the Bank is at present doing in this regard.

In the first place, our staff, as a matter of routine, produces reports on the economic situation and prospects for each of the countries to which we make Bank loans or IDA credits. These reports contain all the available debt information about that country and they also contain an analysis of the debt burden. Secondly, four or five times a year we prepare reports on the external public debt of a selected group of countries—each debtor country appears once a year. I enclose copies of our last two reports of this kind. They contain statistical information only, without any analysis and, like the country reports referred to above, they show scheduled amortization and interest payments for the next fifteen years.

Both these reports are circulated to the Executive Directors of the Bank among whom, of course, all the DAC countries are represented. In addition, a copy of the external public debt statistical report is sent to the DAC Secretariat in Paris.

All the above material is collected from the borrowing countries. We also receive information from the creditor countries about their claims. Under a special “exchange of information” arrangement, the Bank receives six-monthly statements from each of the fourteen major creditor countries on their scheduled receipts of amortization and interest, during the next ten years, from the public and private sectors in each debtor country. We process this information here and circulate, to the creditor countries only (and also to the DAC Secretariat), figures showing the total debt position of each borrowing country. I enclose our latest version of this report for your information.²

Finally, the Bank staff occasionally undertakes comprehensive analyses of the debt servicing burden and debt servicing ability of all or most of the borrowing countries. One such analysis was published in 1958 and another in 1960.³ We are now up-dating the earlier publications and the new study should be completed in a few months’ time and will be available to the UN Conference on Trade and Development.⁴

All this may sound quite impressive, so I should add that we are not satisfied with the scope or form of our information and we are actively considering how it might be improved.⁵

I am sending a copy of this letter to John Bullitt.

Yours sincerely,

G. M. Wilson

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, AID(IBRD) 9. No classification marking.
1. The salutation was handwritten by Wilson.
2. Not printed.
3. Neither found.
4. The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development was held in Geneva March 23-June 16, 1964.
5. In this October 24 reply, Ball thanked Wilson for the information on the Bank’s monitoring “of the debt position of the borrowing countries and the problems encountered by these countries in servicing such debts,” and noted he was encouraged by the Bank’s consideration of “further improvements” in its activities. (Department of State, Central Files, AID (IBRD) 9)