VIDEO LOADING BELOW

MR. VILKAS:  Thank you very much.  Now, maybe we will go to the questions on different countries. 

So, we will touch upon on Zimbabwe, and Simba Chikanza from ZimEye news network is asking, does the IMF now uphold Zimbabwe’s credit worthiness seeing that it has cleared its arrears, or it still needs to work on it?

MR. SELASSIE:  So, unfortunately, Zimbabwe continues to have arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank, which is a constraint on our abilities to lend to the country.

This hasn’t stopped us, of course, from engaging on policy dialogue, and we are also actually having discussions on other means in which Zimbabwe can be helped by development partners, including grant support.

We’ve been very much highlighting the complexity of the policy environment and the tremendous policy constraints that the government has in terms of being able to mount the kind of response that other countries, to whom we will be able to lend, can. 

So, it is a case which we worry about and are doing our utmost to get the support that Zimbabwe needs from development partners.