Paris Club

Summary of Paris Club

Also known as the Group of Ten, an informal association of creditor nations which since 1956 has held informal meetings among senior financial officers of the member states to discuss international financial and trade conditions. Participating nations are: Belgium Italy

Canada JaPan

France Netherlands

Germany, West Sweden

Great Britain United States

Switzerland originally participated in the group as an associate; it has since become a full member.

Since Argentina first approached the club in 1956 to restructure its foreign debts, the group has been involved in fifty-six different negotiations involving twenty debtor countries to reschedule payments.

(Main Author: William J. Miller)

Paris Club in relation with International Trade

In the context of trade organizations, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following definition of Paris Club: An informal designation for meetings between representatives of a developing country that wishes to renegotiate its official debt (normally excluding debts owned by and to the private sector without official guarantees) and representatives of the relevant creditor governments and international institutions. The meetings are traditionally chaired by a senior official of the French Treasury .Comparable meetings occasionally take place in London and in New York for countries that wish to renegotiate repayment terms for their debts to private banks; such meetings are sometimes called “creditors clubs”.