MOSCOW, June 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's government said Friday it had agreed to write off $5 million of Nicaragua's debt.
The proposal for the Central American country's debt to Russia was made by the Finance Ministry and has been coordinated with the Foreign Ministry.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier Russia has so far written off $11.3 billion of African nations' debt, including $2.2 billion through the Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), a debt relief program initiated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in 1996.
Russia announced plans in late May to increase its financial aid to poor countries to $500 million in the next few years.
