ABSTRACT
The less developed countries’ (LDC) repayment capacity will depend not only on the terms and conditions but also on world trade that, in turn, will depend to a great extent upon the growth rate of the advanced economies. With 1984 being an election year in the United States, much has been made of the recovery of the US economy following three years of Reaganomics. Official forecasts made public at the beginning of 1984 put real gross national product growth for the whole year at close to 5 percent with price increases of only about 4.5 percent and a considerable decline in unemployment. Once the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members' borrowing of US$9 billion is excluded from this total, some US$16 billion only corresponds to the non-OPEC LDCs and the socialist bloc, with the largest part representing several "jumbo loans" to major Latin American debtors.
