During a meeting with representatives of civil society as part of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director, welcomed yesterday's restart "shy" of the haitian economy.
The economic situation post-quake was "terrible", the whole economy was blocked because of "the inability of the central bank to offer services as simple as providing banknotes" he said. "We had to rebuild the economy's... and it was done fairly quickly, which allowed a slow recovery", welcomed Mr Strauss-Kahn.
"We did everything we could do, canceling the debt of $268 million of Haiti." He recalled that erasing the debt of a country was not an easy task for an institution like the IMF, "because the money lent to Haiti from the member states" and their need to obtain agreements to operate such cancellation.
"Much has been done, probably not enough" said the IMF chief, noting that after the cancellation of debt, the institution was granted a new loan of $60 million to the Central Bank of Haiti for three years. Ready to serve as a reserve fund to stabilize the local currency and prevent a devaluation source of inflation.
Let's not worry for the IMF, Haiti had more debt, the Fund will put back the country into debt progressively [even if it's the best rate, a loan remains a debt]. The influence [and economic interference] of the IMF in the countries in the process of development, is well established, the vicious cycle of economic dependence with this institution is one of the most difficult to break.
