GENEVA, Dec 7 (AFP) - Western governments and the World Bank agreed on Friday to provide a multi-million-dollar package to Burundi to help with debt repayments and to invest in programmes to fight the spread of AIDS.

Announcing the 764-million-dollar (858-million-euro) raft of loans and aid donations, Burundian President Pierre Buyoya said in Geneva that the AIDS-ravaged central African country was in desperate need of international help.

"Burundi is among the countries worst hit by the AIDS epidemic. Burundi's debt has become unbearable. We have come to ask the international community to help us confront the problem of debt," Buyoya told journalists.

The country is one of the worst hit by the disease and more than one in 10 of population suffers from AIDS.

Buyoya said that Burundi had developed a national five-year action plan against AIDS which would cost around 250 million dollars, and would include a ministry that would deal exclusively with the immunodeficiency virus and the spread of AIDS.

Buyoya was speaking after two days of round-table discussions held under the aegis of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Geneva, where AIDS and the country's crippling debt burden dominated the agenda.

The international community, he said "expressed its solidarity with Burundi as it did last year," but that "in terms of contributions it has gone even further and for the 2002-2004 period, promises are between 750 million and 900 million dollars."

"What has been firmly announced is 764 million dollars. It's a clear and positive response" he said.

Burundi's foreign debt stands at over 1.1 billion dollars, the equivalent of 180 percent of its annual gross domestic product, while interest payments for the debt swallowed up 98 percent of export revenues this year, compared with 60 percent in 1997, according to the UNDP.

The proposals announced Friday are designed to allow Burundi to pay off its debt servicing charges, through the creation of a trust fund.

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