简体中文
Venezuela signed a debt restructuring deal with major creditor Russia on Wednesday, a diplomatic source told AFP, as ratings agencies declared Caracas in partial default.
The country is seeking to restructure its foreign debts, estimated at around $150 billion, after it was hit hard by tumbling oil prices and American sanctions.
The source did not give details of the deal, which are set to be made public at a press conference at the Venezuelan embassy attended by the country's finance minister Simon Zerpa.
S&P Global Ratings meanwhile said it had placed Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA in "selective default" after it failed to make its interest payments on some of its debt.
The ratings agency this week declared the country itself in selective default after it failed to make $200 million in payments on two global bond issues.
Fitch also downgraded PDVSA and cash-strapped Venezuela over delayed payments, but Caracas insisted it was in the process of paying up.
Moscow and Caracas have been negotiating for months the terms of a deal that would restructure almost $3 billion-worth of debt taken out in 2011 to finance the purchase of Russian arms.
Anton Tabakh, chief economist at the RAEX rating agency, said it was "normal" that Moscow was continuing to restructure Caracas's debts.
The move allows "both parties to save face and gain time, because now the issue of Venezuelan debt simply cannot be resolved, even formally," he told AFP.
Caracas has only $9.7 billion in foreign reserves and needs to pay back at least $1.47 billion in interest on various bonds by the end of the year, and then about $8 billion in 2018.
Russia and China are the two main creditors and allies of Venezuela, which owes them a total of $8 billion and $28 billion respectively.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday expressed confidence Caracas could "properly handle" its debt crisis, adding that financial cooperation was "proceeding normally".
(AFP)
