LONDON: A group of prominent former emerging market finance chiefs is pressing global leaders to incorporate external shocks and climate change into debt sustainability calculations, according to a letter published on Wednesday.
The signatories, former central bankers and finance ministers mostly from emerging economies from India to Argentina, also called for debt relief to enable struggling emerging economies to meet climate investment targets.
“Every civilization faces what seems to be an impossible hurdle that threatens its existence,” Patrick Njoroge, former governor of Kenya’s central bank, said in the letter.
“We face such a moment, given the global debt crisis and the limited space for the required investments in climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The World Bank has warned that high borrowing costs and slowing growth have sparked a “silent debt crisis” that has thrown climate, health and education spending goals into question across the developing world.
The 21 signatories included Nigeria’s Lamido Sanusi, Colombia’s Jose Antonio Ocampo, Pakistan’s Reza Baqir, Argentina’s Martin Guzman and South Africa’s Tito Mboweni.
Zambia this week became the first poor nation to emerge from debt default under a rubric designed by the G20 dubbed the Common Framework.
But some have said the debt relief — estimated to have reduced Zambia’s debt by some $900 million and spread future payments over a much longer time frame — was insufficient.
The letter is asking for the Common Framework to give countries fair, comparable debt relief from all creditors, with the relief sufficient to allow countries to meet climate and investment spending needs.
The International Monetary Fund is also in the midst of a years-long revamp of the way it calculates debt sustainability analyzes — figures that form the baseline to determining how much debt relief lenders must give to defaulted countries.
These have been criticized in recent months and years by some investors and experts.
The Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery Project (DRGR), which organized the letter, released a study earlier this year that found emerging countries will pay a record $400 billion to service external debt in 2024.
It said 47 of them cannot spend the money they need for climate adaptation and sustainable development without risking default in the next five years.
“It is time for G20 leaders to spearhead comprehensive debt relief and mobilize new financing to uphold sustainable development and climate objectives,” Wednesday’s letter read.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and China on Wednesday signed 32 memorandums of agreement in the fields of IT, textiles, leather and footwear, minerals, pharmaceuticals and agriculture and food processing, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. 
The agreements were signed during the second day of PM Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China from June 4-8 as the South Asian nation pushes to bring in much needed foreign direct investment. 
The focus of Sharif’s visit is business-to-business meetings and efforts to seek an upgrade for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, through which Beijing has pledged over $60 billion in Pakistan since 2015.
“A historic moment between private sectors of Pakistan and China was observed today when 32 MoUs in different fields were signed on the sidelines of the Pakistan Business Conference in Shenzhen after the B2B (business to business) meetings between the Pakistani businessmen and their counterparts from China,” the PMO said. 
“The areas of interest for the business community of both sides included the fields of electronics & home appliances, ICT, textile, leather & footwear, minerals and pharmaceuticals etc.”
The private sectors of both countries signed four MoUs in the field of energy, two in automobiles, one in cultural cooperation, four in IT, six in pharmaceutical and health care, four in logistics and ten in agriculture and food processing. A Letter of Intent (LoI) in the field of Optical Fibre Networks was also signed. 
“Business Conference Shenzhen 2024 will not only pave the ground for the introduction of Pakistani products in the regional markets, but it will also leave a positive impact of strong regional government-business relations on Pakistan economy’s strategic transformations,” the PMO said. “An unprecedented next level industrial cooperation between the two nations is expected out of this B2B initiative of the government.”
“Many businesses sat together and participation took place,” National Bank of Pakistan President Rehmat Ali Shamsi, who is part of the delegation visiting China, told state media. “Plus, many MOUs were also signed.”
Additional Secretary of the Board of Investment, Dr. Erfa Iqbal, said the Pakistani delegation was expecting “high-level industrial corporation” from China to help in increasing exports, making way for local products to reach international markets. 
“This will also strengthen CPEC in the second phase,” she added.