Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    STOCKHOLM, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Four fellow-Nordic countries will loan Iceland 2.5 billion U.S. dollars to help it cope with an acute financial crisis.

    The money would supplement a similar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) worth 2.1 billion dollars, the ministers of finance of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden said in a joint statement Thursday.

    "As outlined in the IMF program, an ambitious multi-year fiscal consolidation program will help Iceland stabilize the economy, including the exchange rate, and reduce public debt over the medium-term," the ministers emphasized.

    The IMF approved the two-year loan in Washington on Wednesday. It said the standby arrangement was structured so that Iceland could immediately draw about 827 million dollars, with the rest in eight installments of about 155 million dollars, to stabilize a banking crisis of extraordinary proportions.

    "The work with implementing the IMF program will not be easy but given appropriate measures we believe that there is a good basis for rebalancing the economy," the finance ministers said in the statement.