Highlights

Mr. Mohammed Boussaid pays tribute to BADEA for their development efforts in Africa

11/06/2014
Mr. Mohammed Boussaid pays tribute to BADEA for their development efforts in Africa

Monsieur Mohamed BOUSSAID, Minister of Economy and Finance, gave, Wednesday, June 11th, 2014 in Casablanca, a speech at the time of the opening of the 2nd meeting of the Board of directors of the Arab Bank for Economic development in Africa (BADEA) which is held from June 11th to June 13th in Morocco.  

​ On this occasion, Mr. BOUSSAID welcomed the initiative of the President of the Board of the BADEA, Mr. Yousif Bin Ibrahim Al Bassam, to choose Morocco to host the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Bank for the year 2014. He also stressed the continuing effort of the BADEA to improve its performance and increase its efficiency for development in Africa both through its financial role and through increased investment in non-Arab African countries .This is done through the allocation of more than $ 4.3 billion for the period 1975- 2013 to finance its development projects.

The Minister paid tribute to the role of the Bank to reduce the public debt of poor African countries as well as its continued support which benefits the Palestinian people by allocating 10% of its annual net income to the 'Al Aksaa' and 'Al Quods' funds.

"The increase to $ 1.6 billion in the volume of the Arab Bank’s commitments for economic development in Africa during the next five years for the benefit of the continent, will have to accompany the development efforts of African countries and strengthen the Arab-African solidarity", stated Mr. BOUSSAID specifying that: "this measure is part of the 7th five-year plan (2015-2019) of the BADEA and thus improves by 60% the Bank commitments over the 2010-2014 plan.

The Minister explained that the plan pays particular attention to the promotion of the private sector in Africa through direct loans and credit facilities to finance its projects, support the public-private partnership, fund Arab -African Common projects and expand the financing transactions of the Arab exports to these countries.

"This plan is of great importance given the challenges facing the continent , related to the development, debt and the scarcity of resources to finance social and productive sectors, infrastructures and support institutional capacity, "he noted.

In addition, Mr. BOUSSAID highlighted the importance of the cooperation relations of the Kingdom with African countries, strengthened by the visit of HM King Mohammed VI to these countries the last one was from February 18th  to March  8th , 2014, and which were an opportunity to sign several agreements to reinforce economic and trade cooperation links and promote the private sector especially in key sectors such as agriculture, fishing, equipment, tourism, education, health and environment, mining and information technology as well as communication.

For his part, the president of the BADEA Board, Mr. Yousif Bin Ibrahim Al Bassam stated that the institution was able to implement all of its program under the year 2013 with 22 loans of 192 million dollars at very favorable terms to finance development projects in Africa and the allocation of 8 million dollars in technical assistance to finance 33 operations for the benefit of 454 trainees.
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"The BADEA, in collaboration with the Islamic Development Bank group, continued funding the Arab exports to sub-Saharan African markets," he stressed.​

The agenda of the session of the Board involves the review of reports on the activities of the Bank during the period from March to May 2014. These reports focus on the financial aspect and the portfolios as well as projects funding and technical assistance operations in the continent.​