The International Monetary and Financial Committee(IMFC) has approved a deal to erase billions of dollars of debt for poor countries, Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer announced here Saturday.

Negotiators reached agreement on "all elements" of the debt cancellation deal, said Brown, who is the chairman of the IMFC, the policy-setting panel of the International Monetary Fund(IMF).

He said the IMF's 24-member executive board would meet soon to formally approve the deal.

The agreement still needs to be approved by the World Bank, which is a major lender to poor countries.

Under the agreement, an estimated 40 billion US dollars worth of payments that 18 poor countries owe the World Bank, IMF and other international lenders would initially be forgiven. Most of the countries are in Africa.

About 20 other countries could be eligible for debt cancellation if they meet certain conditions. That would push the total amount of debt cancellation to more than 55 billion dollars.

Both the World Bank and IMF do not want the debt plan to impair their ability to provide aid. They hope the rich nations would put up the money to cover the loan repayments lost when the debts are written off.

Source: Xinhua