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IMF, Ecuador still working on loan details-IMF

CAMBRIDGE. Mass., March 3 (Reuters) - More details are needed on a deal to provide a financial package which would provide Ecuador with backing for its dollarization plan, IMF acting head Stanley Fischer said on Friday.

But parties negotiating a deal that would help Ecuador introduce the dollar to stabilize its economy were not far apart, Fischer told reporters.

``There are a few more things, we are not all the way there,'' Fischer said at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. ``There are a few things that should be ironed out...We're not very far apart.''

Ecuador, which has been negotiating about new loans from the IMF for almost a year, hopes its plans to use the dollar will stabilize an economy mired in its worst crisis in five decades.

Fischer said earlier that Ecuador had introduced serious laws and its plans to use the dollar seemed to be working. ``They did get a pretty serious law on dollarization and restructuring the economy,'' he said.

The legislation will also open up the economy to foreign investment and cut a yawning budget deficit.