Value proposition

Principal international forum for restructuring official bilateral debt

The Paris Club is an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries. As debtor countries undertake reforms to stabilize and restore their macroeconomic and financial situation, Paris Club creditors provide an appropriate debt treatment. Paris Club creditors provide debt treatments to debtor countries in the form of rescheduling, which is debt relief by postponement or, in the case of concessional rescheduling, reduction in debt service obligations during a defined period (flow treatment) or as of a set date (stock treatment).

The origin of the Paris Club dates back to 1956 when Argentina agreed to meet its public creditors in Paris. Since then, the 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 $ 614 billion.

The Paris Forum has been coordinating yearly events since 2013. It gathers representatives from creditor and debtor countries, and is a forum for frank and open debate on the global evolutions in terms of sovereign financing and on the prevention and resolution of sovereign debt crises. As international financial markets and capital flows are increasingly integrated, non-Paris Club official bilateral creditors are representing a larger share in the financing of developing and emerging countries. The objective of the Forum, in this context, is to foster close and regular dialogue between stakeholders, in order to create an international financial environment favorable to sustainable growth in developing countries. In particular, the Paris Forum aims at enhancing the involvement of emerging countries, be they creditors or debtors, in international debates on sovereign financing, in order to make discussions as open and frank as possible.