The Paris Club is a group of mostly western creditor countries that grew from a 1956 meeting in which Argentina agreed to meet its public creditors in Paris.
It describes itself as a forum where official creditors meet to solve payment difficulties faced by debtor countries.
Their objective is to find sustainable debt-relief solutions for countries that are unable to repay their bilateral loans.
The “G20 Common Framework” is an initiative endorsed by the G20 together with the Paris Club.
Other creditor nations are allowed to participate in negotiation meetings on a case-by-case basis, if they meet certain conditions.
The members meet in Paris once a month except for February and August.
Each meeting includes a one-day ‘Tour d’Horizon’, during which creditors talk about the external debt situation of debtor nations, or issues regarding how those countries are managing their debts.
The Paris Club invites debtor nations to a meeting with its creditors after it has concluded an appropriate program with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) that shows that the country cannot meet its external debt obligations, and therefore requires a new payment arrangement with its foreign creditors.
Representatives of the World Bank, the IMF and other international institutions, plus the relevant regional development bank, may also attend the meeting as observers.
The debtor country’s representative is usually its Minister of Finance, who heads a team comprising officials from his or her ministry and the central bank.
Members:
The members are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to its official website, Paris Club has reached 478 agreements with 102 different debtor countries.
Since 1956, the debt treated in the framework of Paris Club agreements amounts to USD 614 billion.
The Paris Club operates on the principles of consensus and solidarity and any agreement reached with the debtor country applies equally to all Paris Club creditors.
The club used to be a dominant bilateral lender in the last century, but its importance has diminished with the emergence of China as the world’s largest bilateral lender.
Paris Club
OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)
The OECD is an intergovernmental economic organisation, founded to stimulate economic progress and world trade.
Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) and are regarded as developed countries.
Founded: 1961.
Headquarters: Paris, France.
As of Jan 2023 there are 38 members of the OECD.
On 14 December 1960, 20 countries originally signed the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Since then, 18 countries have become members of the Organisation.
The 38 Member Countries consist of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
India is not a member, but a key economic partner.
