AfDB $500M loan to be signed before year-end

CAIRO – 4 October 2017: Egypt will sign a $500 million loan agreement with the African Development Bank (AfDB) before the end of 2017, which is a part of a $1.5 billion agreement reached in 2015 to support economic development, Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr said Wednesday.

In a meeting with AfDB officials, Nasr discussed the bank’s proposal to fund the Abu Rawwash water treatment plant in Giza with $150 million.

Vice President of the bank, Khaled Sherif, reviewed AfDB’s scope of work in Egypt. Sherif said that Egypt is a founding member of the AfDB and the second largest contributor in the bank, which finances 29 projects with a total value of $2.3 billion.

“Around 44 percent of the projects are in the energy sector, 45 percent are allocated to the state budget, three percent in the irrigation sector, two percent in the agriculture sector and one percent in the social solidarity sector,” he said.

The $500 million is the third tranche of a three-year $1.5 billion loan approved by the AfDB in 2015 to finance the Egypt Economic Governance and Energy Support Program.

With the first two tranches already disbursed at $500 million each, the program aims to support sustainable growth in Egypt through financing the fiscal, governance, energy, business and climate sectors.