Al Ganzoury Witnessed Ceremony of Final Signing

Prime Minister, Dr. Kamal Al Ganzoury, witnessed ceremony of final signing on agreements concerning loan by the Arab Monetary Fund AMF amounting to 85 million Kuwaiti Dinar to finance two projects namely electricity plan in South Helwan, and the urgent programme on supporting SMEs private sector. The agreement was signed by the Minister of Planning Fayza Abul Naga from the Egyptian side, and the General Manager and the board chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development Dr. Abdel Latif Youssef from the Fund’s side, in attendance of the Minister of Electricity and General Secretary of the Social Fund for Development.

First: South Helwan station: The project will contributes in fulfilling increasing demand on electricity through increasing the generation capacity in Upper Egypt area by 1950 MW through establishment of power generation plant using the super critical steam generation technician which enjoys high thermal efficiency and using natural gas as a main fuel, and heavy fuel oil as alternative fuel. The Minister of Planning was keen on providing finance package from Egypt’s partners in development amounting to USD 1994 million as follows; local component; EGP 2976 (USD 523 million), and the foreign component; USD 1471 million including loan by the African Development Bank of USD 485, loan by the International Bank for Building and Construction of USD 515 million, loan by the Kuwaiti Bank for Arab Economic Development of USD 200 million, loan by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development of USD 200 million which is signed today with easy loaning conditions and interest rate 3% annually, and payment period 25.5 years, with grace period 6 years, and Upper Egypt Company for Electricity Production will contributes by USD 71 million.

Second: Urgent programme on supporting SMEs private sector: The programme aims at supporting small and medium projects and constructions of the private sector to face the exceptional economic and social situation prevailing in Egypt, through provision of finance for these projects of the development dimension to be established in various economic sectors. This will help finding additional jobs, increasing production and exports of goods and services. The loan interest rate reaches 3% annually, payment period 25.2 years, and grace period 7 years.

Based on the above mentioned two agreements, total contribution of the Arab Fund since 1974 to date amount to 1.48 million Kuwaiti Dinar. These agreements come within the strategy introduced by the Ministry of Planning with the fund for 2009-2014 includes projects in electricity and energy, natural gas for Upper Egypt governorates, development of railways, airports, tourism, monuments restoration, and SFD projects.

Concerning grants provided by the fund to Egypt, total grants reach 15.105 million Kuwaiti Dinar to finance several projects including preparation of database for the national archive, supporting requirements for bird flu, reforming and restoring some governmental constructions amounting to 4.2 million Kuwaiti Dinar and others. Dr. Al Ganzoury expressed his appreciation to the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development Fund to support Egyptian economy over the current transitional period.