US $49.9 million to alleviate poverty and aid growth

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year loan of US $49.9 million to Chad, under the Fund’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), to support the government’s 1999-2002 economic programme. Announcing this on Friday, the IMF said the first annual loan of some US $14.3 million would be available in two equal instalments with approximately half the amount available immediately. “In considering the three-year programme presented by Chad for support under the PRGF, directors stressed the importance of consolidating the fiscal gains from the previous programme,” Shigemitsu Sugisaki, IMF deputy managing director, said. Following Chad’s completion of a three-year IMF structural adjustment programme in April, it had improved its public finances and progressed in implementing key structural reforms, he said, although difficulties in raising fiscal revenues continued to hamper economic performance. These difficulties, he said, underlined the need for Chad to persevere with its economic reforms so it could “achieve the transition from crisis management and stabilisation to the steady implementation of economic and social policies for development and poverty reduction”.