East African Devt Bank gets Rwf21b to fund regional SMEs

The east African Development Bank (EADB) has landed a 25m euro (about Rwf21.1b) line of credit deal with the European Investment Bank (EIB) of the European Union.Granted under the Cotonou Investment Facility Resources Protocol, the line of credit will be used to part-finance projects implemented by private sector and public-owned entities in the agriculture, agro-processing, fishing, manufacturing, construction, tourism and transport sectors, as well as education and healthcare services in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.Vivienne Yeda, the EADB director general, said the facility also has a technical assistance component to support institutional strengthening of the bank’s risk management and internal control framework. She called on member states to prioritise regional integration, noting that the region stands to gain more by opening up its borders.“There is no better way of facilitating the private sector than to open up our economies, enabling them to produce efficiently and access markets,” Yeda noted in a statement.Pim van Ballekom, the European Investment Bank vice-president, said the financing would enable entrepreneurs invest in new markets to create more jobs. He observed that the money will be used for co-financing debt and leasing transactions for start-up, expansion, diversification and modernisation projects undertaken by small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the region.The two officials called on the private sector to take advantage of the good business climate in the region to innovate, diversify and discover new markets.On Wednesday, EADB gave Development Bank of Rwanda a $10m (about Rwf6.5b) line of credit for on-lending to small-and-medium enterprises.Speaking during the signing of the loan deal, Jack Kayonga, the Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) outgoing chief executive, said the credit facility would facilitate the bank’s long-term financing of development projects primarily targeting the growths of SMEs across all the sectors of the economy.

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East African Devt Bank gets Rwf21b to fund regional SMEs