An economist urged debt relief for the Third World.

Debt relief for developing nations must begin now or it will be virtually impossible to redress the world’s massive imbalance of payments without a major economic contraction, economist Henry Kaufman said in remarks prepared for a conference on global debt strategy. The Salomon Bros. analyst said the Third World cannot grow its way out of the debt crisis because world economic expansion is too weak. As a result, debtors face a solvency crisis, not just a passing liquidity problem, Kaufman said. He told the conference that ways can be devised for granting orderly debt relief only if the role of some of the existing international institutions is expanded and new bodies are established.