Around the World: Russia

Libyan debt written off

Russia has agreed to write off $4.5 billion worth of Libyan debt in exchange for contracts with Russian companies, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said yesterday. Speaking during a visit to Libya with President Vladimir Putin, Kudrin told reporters: "Russia will write off this debt in return for multi-billion dollar contracts for Russian companies."

He said the debt would be cancelled once payments for the contracts arrived in the bank accounts of the Russian companies.