The Kuwaiti Fund for Economic and Social Development (KFESD) has granted Morocco a loan of MAD 480 million as a contribution to the funding of a motorway linking Marrakech and Agadir, south-western Morocco.
The loan convention was signed Monday in Rabat by the Director General of the Fund, Abdelwahab Ahmed Al Badr, and the Director General of the Moroccan Highway Administration (ADM), Othman Fassi Fihri.
The signing ceremony was attended by the Minister of Finance and Privatisation, Fathallah Oualalou, the Moroccan Minister of Equipment and Transport, Karim Ghellab, and the Kuwaiti ambassador to Morocco, Salah Al Baijane.
The loan is at a 3.5% annual interest rate and is to be paid back over 22 years, with a grace period of five years. It represents 5% of the project's global cost and will finance the part of the motorway stretching between Imin' Tanout and Argana (59 Km).
The 223 km Marrakech-Agadir motorway, to start operating by 2009, will cost about MAD 7 billion. It is part of the North-South linking programme.
Since 1966, the KFESD has funded 31 development projects in Morocco, worth USD 1.02 billion, besides a technical assistance of USD 500.000 to finance a project for providing rural areas with drinking water, reported the Rabat-based MAP news agency.
Last week, the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) granted the Moroccan Highway Administration (ADM) a loan of MAD 960 million, to help fund the Marrakech-Agadir motorway project.
This loan is the last leg of the motorway's funding operation by the AFESD; the first one, MAD 900 million, took place in 2005.
The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) is an autonomous regional Pan-Arab development organization, grouping all member-states of the Arab League.
Earlier, The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) had said it would contribut, with an amount of USD 106 millions, to the financing of the same project.
By Bachir Niah
© Morocco Times 2006
