{"id":19684,"date":"2026-02-04T14:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=19684"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T10:50:14","slug":"key-events-in-ethiopias-journey-towards-debt-restructuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/19684\/key-events-in-ethiopias-journey-towards-debt-restructuring\/","title":{"rendered":"Key events in Ethiopia&#8217;s journey towards debt restructuring"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-0\">\n<p>Ethiopia&#8217;s bondholders are planning to\u00a0sue the government\u00a0after its bilateral creditors blocked a preliminary agreement on restructuring its $1 billion bond, a move that could delay the country&#8217;s efforts to come out of an external debt default.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a timeline of key events in Ethiopia&#8217;s debt restructuring:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>November 2020: War breaks out in the northern region of Tigray between forces loyal to the regional government and the federal military, further straining government finances hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/li>\n<li>Disruptions related to the war and COVID lead to the collapse of a $2.9 billion IMF programme agreed in December 2019.<\/li>\n<li>January 2021: The government says it will seek to restructure its sovereign debt under a new G20 initiative to offer relief to developing economies, which is known as the Common Framework.<\/li>\n<li>June 2022: Talks with the IMF resume.<\/li>\n<li>October 2022: The government in Addis Ababa bans the import of dozens of products including cars, liquor and household goods due to acute foreign currency shortages.<\/li>\n<li>March\/April 2023: An IMF team visits Ethiopia on a staff mission for talks with authorities.<\/li>\n<li>August 2023: Ethiopia says it has secured a debt servicing suspension from China, one of its key creditors.<\/li>\n<li>September\/October 2023: Another IMF team visits Addis Ababa for talks with authorities.<\/li>\n<li>November 2023: The government reaches an agreement in principle with its official creditors on an interim debt service suspension.<\/li>\n<li>December 2023: The country defaults on its $1 billion Eurobond after missing a $33-million coupon payment. That causes its sovereign bond to slide and ratings agencies cut the country&#8217;s credit rating to reflect the default.<\/li>\n<li>July 29, 2024: The central bank floats the birr currency, a key demand of the IMF for a new financing arrangement, sending it sharply down against the dollar. Hours later, the IMF approves a four-year, $3.4 billion programme, paving the way for Ethiopia&#8217;s debt restructuring to move forward.<\/li>\n<li>August 14, 2024: A group of foreign bondholders, known as the ad hoc committee, expresses disappointment over the government&#8217;s comments about a potential 20% principal haircut as a result of the restructuring.<\/li>\n<li>September 27, 2024: The IMF says it has reached a staff-level agreement with the government after the first review of the reforms programme.<\/li>\n<li>October 1, 2024: Ethiopia invites its bondholders to negotiate in parallel with official creditor talks to expedite the debt overhaul.<\/li>\n<li>February 17, 2025: The ad hoc committee of foreign bondholders accuses the IMF of putting out a flawed report on Ethiopia&#8217;s economy, to support the case for insolvency treatment.<\/li>\n<li>March 21, 2025: The government announces it has reached an agreement in principle with its Official Creditor Committee, which represents bilateral creditors such as France and China. The deal was formalised in July.<\/li>\n<li>January 3, 2026: The government says it had reached a preliminary restructuring agreement with bondholders, sending the bond higher as the market welcomed the resolution.<\/li>\n<li>January 30, 2026: The government says it will renegotiate terms of restructuring the bond after official creditors rejected the initial agreement. A group of bondholders warns it plans to take legal action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethiopia&#8217;s bondholders are planning to\u00a0sue the government\u00a0after its bilateral creditors blocked a preliminary agreement on restructuring its $1 billion bond, a move that could delay the country&#8217;s efforts to come out of an external debt default.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,35],"tags":[396,114,534],"class_list":["post-19684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-ana-politics","tag-china","tag-ethiopia","tag-tigray"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19685,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19684\/revisions\/19685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}