SARAH Wheatcroft (Letters, February 27) has got some of her facts wrong about Third World debts to rich nations.

The sum of £800 billion is owed to all the western banks, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Japanese banks.

Britain alone cannot unilaterally write off Third World debt. This would have to be a joint agreement by all banks involved.

The amount owed by the Third World to British banks is £40 billion to £80 billion.

British aid to the Third World is 0.3 per cent Gross National Product annually, amounting to around £2 billion - well short of the aid target the 0.7 per cent of GNP set by the United Nations for the richer countries. Under the Conservatives, British aid to Third World countries has fallen to around 40 per cent of that given by the last Labour government, which was around 0.5 per cent of GNP.

Britain has lagged behind her European neighbours - France and Norway giving 0.7 per cent and Germany 0.5 per cent.

Britain is one of the meanest aid donors in the western world.

Maybe this is due to our economy not being as large as those of Germany, Japan, France and the USA.

Sarah should note that the world's largest banks are Japanese, American and German. And since Britain alone cannot achieve the writing-off of Third World debts, the most powerful nations such as the USA, Germany and Japan must do more towards helping the debt to be written off.

S ADAM, Lincoln Road, Blackburn.

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