The Export-Import Bank of China will provide a 207 billion CFA concessionary loan to Cameroon in order to finance building of an ultra modern deep sea port at Kribi, the government said on Wednesday.
China has been funding numerous projects all over Africa in the past couple of years, and has also been on the lookout for resources that are aplenty in the African continent to improve the pace of its own economic development.
Cameroon Economy, Planning and Regional Development Minister Louis Paul Motaze spoke to the press about the agreements and the talks which led to the conformation of the loan while addressing the media in a press conference on Wednesday.
He said that the deal was finalized after numerous talks with Exim Bank chairman Li Rougu in the capital Yaounde.
“We’ve had a very fruitful discussion with Mr. Li Rougu and reached an agreement with him that his bank will grant us a 207 billion CFA francs concessionary loan to develop the first phase of the Kribi deep sea port project,” he said.
He said the agreement for the loan would be sealed later this week. The Minister however did not disclose specific terms of the loan and avoided most questions related to it.
The Kribi port would be employed for transporting iron ore, alumina, cobalt and nickel from a plethora of mining projects which are slated to commence their operations along the coming five years.
Cameroon’s port of Douala presently manages around 95 percent of the central African country’s shipping traffic, but its capacity is limited by its location on the sediment-infested Wouri River estuary that makes it necessary to have the dredging operations done on a regular basis without which it would be impossible for any big sized ship to approach the port.
The estimated budget for the first phase of the Kribi port project is expected to be close to 282 billion CFA.
The port would provide an access to bigger sized ships that the port of Douala is currently not equipped to handle and would also have road and rail links to mining projects, the government has said.
January 2011. (Cameroon Today Newspaper)
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