Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt and the African Development Bank (AFDB) will sign a $500 million third loan instalment agreement before the end of 2017, according to the minister of investment and international cooperation Sahar Nasr.
This third tranche is a part of the AFDB fund of $1.5 million, of which Egypt received the first and second tranches of $1 billion to bolster Egypt’s economic reform programme, Nasr added in a statement on Wednesday.
This came as part of Nasr’s meeting with the AFDB’s delegation headed by vice president Khaled Sherif, in the presence of the Egyptian minister of water resources and irrigation Mohammed Abdel-Ati.
The AFDB’s funding proposal for establishing a wastewater treatment plant at $150 million in Giza’s Abu Rawash was discussed during the meeting.
Mohamed El Azizi, general director for the North Africa Regional development and business delivery office at the AFDB, said that the bank is setting up a regional platform to support small-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs.
El-Azizi pointed out that a delegation will visit Egypt to implement this platform over the coming period.
The vice president of the AFDB said on Tuesday that Egypt will receive the third and final tranche of the bank’s loan in January 2018.
In December 2015, the Egyptian government and the AFDB signed a $1.5 billion loan agreement, of which the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) received the first and second tranches back in January 2016 and March 2017, respectively.
