IMF keeps 0% rate in loans for poorest

The International Monetary Fund will keep its loan rate for the poorest countries in the world at zero percent for another year, the Fund said Friday. The renewal of the rate, lowered to zero for the first time ever in 2009, came automatically in the absence of any opposition to the proposal to extend it in November, said an IMF spokesman. The rate is being kept low "in view of the current severe downside risks to the global economic outlook," according to the original November proposal to extend it. Around 80 of the 187 IMF member countries could benefit from the low rate and currently 25 countries are getting loans at that rate, most of them in Africa.