Washington, September 26:

Britain will seek to build on an ‘immediate and irrevocable’ debt deal for the world’s poorest nations, reached in Washington over the weekend, when it hosts an unscheduled get-together of finance ministers from the leading industrial natio-ns in London in December.

The gathering of the Group of eight (G8) will be held in London on December 10, two days before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meets in Hong Kong to seek to complete trade liberalisation talks that began four years ago. The British prime minister sees opening up rich western markets to goods from the developing world as an integral part of Britain’s agenda during its presidency of both the G8 and the EU this year — which involved aid, trade and debt relief. There was relief at both the British Treasury and the Department for International Development that last-ditch opposition to write off the debts of the world’s poorest countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank had been overcome.

Some of the smaller European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, had raised doubts about whether the commitment of rich countries to funding the deal would be sufficient, and feared that it might result in less money being available to countries not eligible for debt relief. Following intense negotiations in Washington, the UK’s development secretary, Hilary Benn, said he was delighted by the agreement. “It will give these countries additional and predictable finance and enable them to train and employ nurses, doctors and teachers, and build classrooms so that children can be educated,” said Benn adding that the deal was “immediate and irrevocable”.

The news was welcomed by development groups, but they called for it to be expanded beyond the limited number of countries that currently qualify. “For countries which believed that their debts had already been cancelled, this announcement brings a welcome sigh of relief,” said Romilly Greenhill, policy officer with Action Aid, “But this deal needs to be expanded to include more countries and to eliminate the harmful strings attached. The devil may still be in the detail, and we will be watching to make sure that the deal is not watered down once the media spotlight has faded.”

Oxfam said that the deal would be worth $4 billion in total, or $390 million a year, for the 18 countries that qualified and that this would rise to $625 million a year if all the 38 countries that could potentially benefit were granted debt relief. With the debt deal finally sealed, the UK intends to use the final three months of the year to concentrate on the WTO negotiations, where progress has stalled amid growing signs of protectionist pressures.

Pascal Lamy, the director general of the WTO, said, “We have little time, and a lot of work to do. It is difficult to exaggerate the impo-rtance of the round. Its huge potential for contributing to global growth, correcting imbalances and promoting development is obvious.’’