Brazil “to Write Off’ African Debt

Amid expansion of economic ties with Africa, Brazil will restructure almost $900 million worth of debt with 12 African countries: oil- and gas-rich Congo-Brazzaville, Tanzania and Zambia as well as Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Sudan. The South American giant has also opened 19 new embassies in Africa in the last decade, as part of the so-called South-South cooperation, reports BBC News. Brazil also seeks natural resources for its own growing economy, the seventh largest in the world. Brazilian companies have invested in oil, mining and infrastructure in Africa, and the debt announcement comes a month after “hundreds of protesters in Mozambique blocked the entrance to a Brazilian coal mine in a row over a compensation deal agreed after they were displaced.” The Mozambique government and the Brazilian company promise improvements; Brazil had already canceled the bulk Mozambique’s debt in 2004. – YaleGlobal