Oil-exporting Third World countries asked for aid.

A group of debtor nations, claiming that the plunge in oil prices is devastating petroleum-exporting Third World economies, proposed a fund to help reimburse those nations for oil-related losses. The fund should be set up by the world’s industrial nations and administered by the International Monetary Fund, the developing nations said in a statement issued at a joint meeting of policy-makers for the 149 nations that make up the IMF and the World Bank. The developing nations also called for a reduction of interest rates and a rescheduling of loan payments on the nearly $1 trillion in debt owed to commercial banks and industrialized countries.