Saudi-based IDB to provide $453 mln of funding across region
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has agreed $453.3 million in financing deals across the Middle East and Africa, including $200 million for renewable energy projects in Turkey, the lender said on Sunday. Turkey’s Clean Energy and Energy Infrastructure Programme will receive $200 million, while $78.7 million will go to a Tunisian water project and $79 million to a Jordanian emergency health project, the IDB said on its website. The remainder of the financing is earmarked for countries including Uganda, Suriname, Kenya and Rwanda.
The IDB has approved more than $10 billion in financing for Turkey since 1977, with about a third arriving in the past two years. It extended financing worth $1.5 billion in 2016 and $1.4 billion in 2015, mostly in the financial and transport sectors. A senior official at the Saudi-based lender told Reuters last month that it is planning to take at least a 10 percent stake in Turkey’s state-run stock exchange as it ramps up activities in the country. The latest deals were approved by the bank’s board at a meeting in Jeddah ahead of the annual meeting of the bank’s board of governors this month.
(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by David Goodman)