Letter: Debt-stricken

Sir: Diane Coyle ("Ignore the hysteria over debt", 11 November) should talk to the Citizens Advice Bureau about handling debt. Recipients of Income Support qualify after a period for the payment of interest on their mortgages, non-priority creditors are made to wait, and even banks agree to forego compounded interest. The stricken Central American countries must be at least as well treated.

But maybe their problem is that they do not owe enough. The worried creditors of Korea and Indonesia made sure the world's bankers responded fast. The cost of debt relief for the heavily indebted poorest countries is a fraction of what was on immediate offer to the poorly Asian Tigers.

CHRISTOPHER HALL

Co-ordinator

Christian Concern for One World

Deddington, Oxfordshire