LATIN AMERICA

Brazil Suspends Certain Debts: The Brazilian government has suspended some of its foreign loan payments to Paris Club countries and asked for a renegotiation of the payments, a Central Bank spokeswoman said. The suspended payments are those with due dates on or after today that were set under a 1988 foreign debt accord and have not yet been renegotiated, the spokeswoman said. The Paris Club is an informal group of industrialized nations owed debts by developing countries. The suspension of payments does not affect a pending $35-billion Brady debt reduction with commercial banks. Brazil owes some $21 billion to 13 Paris Club countries, including the United States, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and France. The payments that were suspended amount to only $2.8 billion, the Central Bank spokeswoman said. Economy Ministry spokesman Geraldo Moura said Brazil plans to propose in the near future a plan to restructure the payments. “By Sept. 30, this all will have been renegotiated,” Moura said. There was no immediate response to the suspension from any of the Paris Club countries, nor was there any indication that it would hurt Brazil’s foreign debt renegotiation with commercial banks, which is in its final stages.