Puerto Rico Unable to Make August Debt Payback

TeleSur

The Caribbean island owes US$73 billion to creditors. Analysts warn the 
crisis in Puerto Rico could be worse than Greece’s. 

Puerto Rico will not pay off its US$93.7 million debt installment due Aug. 1 to
the Puerto Rico Public Financing Corporation (CFP), the Caribbean island’s chief
of staff announced Monday. Victor Suarez told journalists in San Juan that the Pu-
erto Rican government was looking into the possibility of obtaining some US$400
million through raising gasoline prices, in order to pay back the US$73 billion debt
owed to creditors. "We are trying to achieve a smaller transaction with reasonable
terms of some $400 to $500 million," Suarez said, according to Reuters. Suarez a-
dded that the island would do everything possible to guarantee the debt due to be
paid to the CFP, a subsidiary of the U.S. territory's Government Development
Bank. The small island...[CONTINUE READING]