The Paris Club

The Paris Club is an informal group of 22 official sovereign creditors whose role is to propose coordinated and sustainable solutions in response to payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries. Depending on the specific economic circumstances, the Paris Club may provide debt rescheduling and/or debt reduction.

Since its establishment in 1956, the Paris Club became the principal forum for restructuring official bilateral debt, finalizing 478 agreements with 102 different debtor countries. Since 1956, the debt treated in the framework of Paris Club agreements amounts to $ 614 billion.

In April 2020 Paris Club and G20 members acknowledged the exceptional scale of the financing needs that the poorest countries were facing as a result of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis. For this purpose, Paris Club and G20 creditors supported a coordinated time-bound suspension of debt service payments for the poorest countries that requested forbearance. Under this initiative (Debt Service Suspension Initiative – DSSI), Paris Club members and the G20 have agreed the key features.

Beyond the DSSI, on the 13th of November 2020, the G20 and the Paris Club Members also agreed the Common Framework for debt treatment, an initiative to support in a structural manner Low Income Countries with unsustainable debt. The Common Framework considers debt treatment on a case-by-case basis, driven by requests from eligible debtor countries willing to bring long term sustainable solutions to the debt service. To date, four countries have requested debt treatment under the Common Framework: Chad, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Ghana.

SACE forms part of the Italian delegation to the Paris Club, co-headed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The Paris Club activity is organized around monthly sessions at the French Treasury in Paris.