2024.03.07
On December 14, 2023, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) established a loan agreement of up to 150 million EUR with the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank Group (TDB). The signing ceremony took place in Nairobi, Kenya, on February 26, 2024. The loan will be co-financed with the Citigroup (Coordinator) and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC).
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in the worst GDP growth rate in Africa in history, recording negative 2.1% in 2020. Although this recovered to 5.1% in 2021, it slowed to 4.0% in 2022 due to the Ukraine crisis that occurred in February of that year. Least developed countries (LDCs) are particularly vulnerable to external shocks, and in order to achieve their sustainable economic and social growth, infrastructure development, the development of industries, and improvement of access to finance are especially critical.
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Signing Ceremony
TDB is a regional development financial institution that has 25 member states in Eastern and Southern Africa. Headquartered in Burundi and Mauritius, its mandate is to finance and foster trade, regional economic integration, and sustainable development.
JICA’s loan will be used for infrastructure development, the development of industries, and improvement of access to finance in LDCs of the member states of the TDB. This will lead to a smoother recovery from external shocks in these countries, and will contribute to the achievement of SDGs Goals 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 17 (Partnerships for the goals). The loan will also lead to the mobilization of commercial banks’ capital in the region.
The SMBC-JICA Sustainable Finance Framework, which was launched in March of 2021, will be applied to this loan agreement.
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