MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Britain to condone poor countries multilateral debts.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Brown promised this Monday in Brighton that UK will condone the world's poorest countries debt with the World Bank.

The announcement during the ruling Labour Party annual congress follows last week statement by France, Spain, Brazil and Chile requesting rich industrialized countries to help with the development of poorer countries.

It also comes a few days before the meeting in Washington of G-7 Finance ministers and the coming annual assemblies of the IMF and World Bank.

"Today we're on our own but I call upon other countries to follow the example so that those indebted countries can lighten the burden of servicing multilateral debts which can't be paid", said Mr. Brown.

G-7 is made up of the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan.

Britain holds 10% of the total debt acquired by the World Bank and other regional development banks which represents 70% of debts contracted by the world's poorest countries.

Apparently the announcement was targeted to hardliners US, Japan and Germany, since Canada and France are expected to make similar statements any moment.

Among some of the Latinamerican countries to benefit from the announcement are Bolivia, Guyana and Nicaragua, with Honduras in line once it complies with certain market oriented reforms, according to Exchequer sources.

The announcement is considered particularly significant since Mr. Brown leads the task group in charge of drafting IMF policies. Besides Mr. Brown's speech was addressed to a packed auditorium of activists who promote fair trade and condoning poor countries foreign debt, meaning Labour's return to some of its traditional roots could be announcing a general election is round the corner.