The already ailing companies cannot afford to pay the high interest rates, ranging from 14 percent to 18 percent.

We have filed a proposal for some US$3 billion worth of machinery and Japan has agreed as long as the government is willing to guarantee (the loan).

Japan has not made clear what amount it can provide since there has not been any guarantee from the government.

We will request premium import duties as well as a quota.

The capital amassed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through various forms of slave economy is still in circulation, said De Jong, still bearing interest, increasing many times over and continually burgeoning anew.

I want to build a studio in my backyard. The interest rates are low now, so who knows.