ADDIS ABABA, – Ethiopia is in the “final stages” of negotiations with its creditors in an ongoing plan to restructure its debt, its finance minister, Ahmed Shide, said on Sunday.

The Horn of Africa country has been pursuing efforts to restructure its sovereign debt under a G20 initiative but talks with creditors have been slow-moving.

Ethiopia has been struggling to clear its mountainous debt and in 2023 the country defaulted on its $1 billion Eurobond.

“We are in the final stage of negotiations in terms of debt restructuring,” Ahmed told a joint press conference in the capital Addis Ababa with visiting IMF head Kristalina Georgieva, adding the process would be completed soon.

At end-June Ethiopia’s external debt stood at $28.9 billion, around half of which it owed to multilateral lenders like the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank.

“It’s on the top of my priority list,” Georgieva said, referring to Ethiopia’s debt restructuring process, which she also described as being in the “final stretch”.

Last July Ethiopia secured an agreement with the IMF for a new financing programme worth $3.4 billion.