Foreign Debts

The Russian Federation, seeking to take on the central role of the crumbling central government of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, said Wednesday that it is prepared to pay the Soviet Union's entire foreign debt, without direct contributions from other republics. Russian officials are concerned that Western fears over Moscow's inability to meet its debt obligations is making it difficult for the Soviet Union to attract new loans and foreign assistance.

The Soviet Union's foreign debt has topped $81 billion, far higher than previously reported, the independent Interfax news agency said Monday. The figure was disclosed at a closed-door meeting of the Inter-Republic Economic Committee, formed to run the country after the failed August coup. Just last week, the Soviet foreign debt had been put at $65 billion to $68 billion. The Tass news agency quoted committee chief Ivan S.

Amid reports that the Soviet Union may be on the brink of running out of hard currency to make debt payments, representatives of the West's leading industrial powers will meet in Paris today to discuss options for dealing with a potential liquidity crisis, sources said Tuesday.

The forint will be devalued by 15% against convertible currencies beginning Monday in an attempt to boost exports to Western markets, the National Bank of Hungary announced Friday. The adjustment will contribute to the galloping inflation that exceeded 30% last year and is expected to soar even higher in 1991 as Hungarians knuckle down to the hard realities of transforming their ravaged economy to a Western-style free market.

Latin American debtor nations failed to honor $18 billion in financial obligations last year as the region's foreign debt escalated further despite efforts to curb it, a study said today. By the end of last year, 27 Latin American nations had a combined foreign debt of $434.6 billion, including $6.45 billion owed by Communist Cuba, according to the study by Caracas-based Latin American Economic System. That amount is 1.5% higher than 1988's total of $427.5 billion, the study said.

America's foreign debt burden surged 25% in 1989 to $663.7 billion as foreigners' holdings in the United States grew at a faster pace than Americans' assets abroad. The new assessment, based on data supplied today by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, showed that the United States increased its lead as the world's largest debtor country.

Argentina has made a $40-million payment to foreign creditors, the first since foreign debt payments were suspended more than two years ago, government officials said Thursday. Carlos Carballo, undersecretary of economy, confirmed that payments had been renewed following "arduous" discussions in New York between Central Bank Vice President Javier Gonzalez Fraga and individual creditor banks.

Brazil has suspended or delayed most payments on its $112-billion foreign debt and has halted repatriation of capital and profits by foreign investors. "So far, the country is in a situation of an undeclared moratorium," the Rio newspaper Jornal do Brasil said Wednesday. Officials have avoided calling the measures a moratorium but have said they are necessary to stop a drain on this country's foreign reserves.

America's foreign debt burden soared to $532.5 billion in 1988, pushing the United States further into hock as the world's largest debtor country, the government reported today. The Commerce Department said the new debt total was $154.2 billion higher than the $378.3 billion in debt to foreigners that the United States owed at the end of 1987. The debt figure means that foreigners own more in U.S. assets than Americans own abroad. For 1988, the government reported that foreign holdings in the United States increased 15.4% to $1.79 trillion.

The Bush Administration, responding to growing instability in Latin American countries straining under heavy debt loads, today unveiled a new strategy emphasizing debt forgiveness to deal with the problem. The new approach was outlined in a major policy address by Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, who called for a "great cooperative effort" among all nations to resolve the debt crisis that has occupied the world for the last seven years.