(a) Economic adjustment programs
(1)
The President shall instruct the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State, and other appropriate Federal officials, and shall request the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, to use all appropriate means to encourage countries to formulate economic adjustment programs to deal with their balance of payment difficulties and external debt owed to private banks.
(b) Changes in Fund guidelines; limitations on debt service exceptionsTo ensure the effectiveness of economic adjustment programs supported by Fund resources—
(1) the United States Executive Director of the Fund shall recommend and shall work for changes in Fund guidelines, policies, and decisions which would—
(A)
convert short-term bank debt which was made at high interest rates into long-term debt at lower rates of interest;
(B)
assure that the annual external debt service, which shall include principal, interest, points, fees, and other charges required of the country involved, is a manageable and prudent percentage of the projected annual export earnings of such country; and
(C)
provide that in approving any economic adjustment program the Fund shall take into account the number of countries applying to the Fund for economic adjustment programs and the aggregate effects that such programs will have on international economic growth, world trade, exports and employment of other member countries, and the long-term solvency of banks; and
(2) except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, the United States Executive Director of the Fund shall oppose and vote against providing assistance from the Fund for any economic adjustment program for a country in which the annual external debt service exceeds 85 per centum of the annual export earnings of such country, unless the Secretary of the Treasury first determines and provides written documentation to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the House of Representatives that—
(A)
the economic adjustment program converts high interest rate, short-term bank debt into long-term debt at significantly narrower interest rate spreads than the average interest rate spreads prevailing on bank debt reschedulings negotiated between August 1982 and August 1983 for countries receiving assistance from the Fund for economic adjustment programs in order to minimize the burdens of adjustment on the debtor nation, provided that such interest rate spreads are consistent with that nation’s need to obtain adequate external private financing;
(c) Emergencies and extraordinary circumstancesThe provisions of subsection (b)(2) shall not apply in any case in which the Secretary of the Treasury first determines and provides written documentation to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the House of Representatives that—
(1)
an emergency exists in a nation that has applied to the Fund for assistance that requires an immediate short-term loan to avoid disrupting orderly financial markets;
(July 31, 1945, ch. 339, § 45, as added Pub. L. 98–181, title I [title VIII, § 806], Nov. 30, 1983, 97 Stat. 1272.)