The country defaulted on $95bn in foreign loans in 2001, and had since gone through three presidents.
The 800 million gold marks in foreign loans had by 1927 enabled German industrial production to regain its 1913 prewar high.
But Argentina continued to borrow heavily abroad, and investors feared that it could not repay some $20 billion in foreign loans due over the next year.
Cotton's significance was underlined early this year when the International Monetary Fund revealed that the Tajik government had secretly diverted its hard currency reserves to use as collateral for $240 million in foreign loans for the cotton trading companies.
This was achieved through wholesale privatisation, a complete opening to the international economy, fixing the exchange rate artificially low, and pumping in foreign loans during the petro-dollar glut of the late 1970s.
Mr Dung has presided over a years-long crackdown on political dissidents who challenge his authority or call for democracy; an embarrassing 2010 default by a state-owned shipbuilder on $600m in foreign loans; and a recent slowdown in economic growth that has rattled investor confidence.
The project is funded through an equity contribution of about USD 200m from Diwaco, a USD 300m grant and a USD 100m stand-by facility from the Jordanian government, as well as USD 475m in foreign loans to Diwaco.
Turkey's economy minister announced a package of austerity measures today aimed at winning $10 billion to $12 billion in new foreign loans and restoring confidence in the country's battered economy.
In Mexico in 1994, for example, much of its debt was in dollars; in such a situation, a foreign loan can help stabilize a crisis, because it provides reserves to the central bank, and this removes the fear that the exchange rate will depreciate excessively.
