The African Development Bank (AfDB) has granted this line of credit to the Mauritanian Bank for Trade and Industry (BCI) to support the country’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting every economy in the world. The fight to save lives is accompanied by strategies to revive the stalled economic system. With this funding, the African Development Bank (AfDB) will, according to a press release received by APA on Monday, allow the Mauritanian Bank for Trade and Industry to “have liquidity in foreign currency.”
This money will be used to “pre-finance the acquisition of machinery, inputs, equipment, consumer goods, foodstuffs and materials for the benefit of the health, agriculture, industry, construction, fish and food processing and handicraft sectors.
The AfDB Board of Directors approved the operation on Friday in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. According to Malinne Blomberg, AfDB Deputy Director General for North Africa, and Country Manager for Mauritania, the objective is to “further facilitate access to finance for Mauritanian SMEs.”
She went on to say that the financial institution’s ambition is to “offer new prospects by encouraging (these companies) to enter promising markets to rapidly boost growth and create sustainable jobs.”
This is the third line of financing for BCI. In 2008 and 2016, it received a total of about $16 million. For Stefan Nalletamby, Director of the Financial Sector Development Department at the AfDB, the context is difficult for Mauritanian banks because “access to financing for SMEs, which has always been a challenge, is aggravated by the current crisis and by the difficult access to foreign currency, which is essential for settling international trade operations.
In its policy, the AfDB has five main priorities on the continent. Through the financing of the CIB, the financial institution says it is achieving four of them: “feeding Africa,” “industrializing Africa” and “integrating Africa” with a catalytic effect on achieving the goal of “improving the quality of life of the African people.”
ID/fss/abj/APA