US Treasury Secretary John Snow repeated on Sunday the Bush administration would support complete debt relief for the poorest countries and said details of how to implement a plan could be worked out.
"We are prepared to go to debt forgiveness of up to 100 percent," Snow told a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. "We think it should be accompanied with greater reliance on grants and appropriate policy framework," he added.
Snow said the details were less important than the growing consensus about the importance of lifting some of the debt load from the poorest countries.
"The details aren't important. What's important is that we all embrace that objective," Snow said. The Bush administration has been urging greater use of grants, rather than loans, because it says that lending more to countries already unable to repay their existing debts makes little sense.
The lending institutions are concerned, though, that the end effect will be to reduce their working capital and make them more subject to the will of countries that support the IMF and World Bank through contributions.
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