KUWAIT CITY, 8 January 2005 — Kuwait has decided to reschedule the repayment of hundreds of millions of dollars in debt owed by Asian nations hit by the tsunami disaster, its foreign minister was quoted as saying yesterday.
“The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) will retabulate loans granted to those nations and will offer an (additional) grace period for repayment to help them,” Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah told local newspapers.
The minister did not name the countries to benefit from the Kuwaiti offer nor the amounts of loans.
KFAED, a state-run fund that provides development loans at reduced interest rates, has provided India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand a total of some $763 million in loans.
The Kuwaiti government has pledged $10 million in aid to the Asian nations. Sheikh Mohammad said his country might increase its contribution.
Several oil-producing nations, especially Gulf states, have been urged by the United States to be extra generous in donating to tsunami relief.
The number of people killed when an earthquake and tsunamis devastated Indian Ocean coastlines on Dec. 26 shot up past 165,000 yesterday. Millions have been left homeless.