292/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
- specialises in very long-term loans (15-20 years) at nil or very
low interest rates to the least developed countries (LDC). The IFC
(International Finance Corporation) is the World Bank subsidiary
responsible for financing private firms and institutions in the Third
World. With the increase in indebtedness, the WB and the IMF
(International Monetary Fund) have adopted a macroeconomic
perspective in their dealings. For example, the WB increasingly
imposes adjustment plans designed to improve the balance of
payments of heavily indebted countries. It never hesitates to dispense
'advice' to countries undergoing IMF 'therapy', on the best ways to
reduce budget deficits, mobilise domestic savings, incite foreign
investors to move in and liberalise currency exchange and prices.
Finally, since 1982 the WB has made structural ad] ustment loans in
support of these programmes to countries which follow its policies.
Types of loans granted by the World Bank:
- Project-loans: traditional-style loans for power stations, oil and
petroleum, forestry industries, agricultural projects, dams, roads,
water distribution and purification projects, etc. - Sectorial adjustment loans aimed at an entire sector of the
national economy: energy, agriculture, industry, etc. - Loans to agencies whose role it is to direct the policies of institu
tions towards foreign trade and to open the way for
transnationals. Such loans also finance the privatisation of public
services and public enterprises. - Structural adjustment loans, ostensibly designed to mitigate the
debt crisis, and which invariably encourage neo-liberal policies. - Loans to combat poverty.
WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO) (taken from M. Khor,
1997)
The WTO founded on 1 January 1995, replaced the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), where states had only had
the status of 'contractual parties', as a permanent negotiating forum.
One of the WTO's objectives is to dismantle state monopolies resulting
from a public decision, where such monopolies still exist. This is what
happened for telecommunications, for which the decision was made
by the WTO in February 1997. Yet others still remain, such as the
railways, and are coveted by the financial groups. Another objective