By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Islamic Development Bank on Monday disclosed that said it has approved a total financing of $1.8 billion for funding developmental programmes in Nigeria.
The amount includes $971 million on project financing by IsDB, about 288 million provided by the Islamic Corporation for the Development (ICD).
President & Chairman of Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB), Dr. Mohamed Suleiman Aljasser made the disclosure when he led a delegation of the bank on a courtesy visit to the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed.
The Islamic bank also requested the federal government to give it a land to build a permanent office in Abuja. Nigeria is the largest office outside of the bank’s head office in Jedda. The bank is engaged in other areas like education and health, a reason Aljasser said the bank is looking forward to entering the food sector as there is a $10 billion facility Nigeria can benefit from.
IsDB said it is partnering other organisations as the African Development Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to establish Special Agriculture Processing Zones (SAPZ), across the country.
The IsDB President said 190km rural roads would be constructed to support Small and Medium Scale farmers in Nigeria.
Aljasser said “our private sector affiliate, $477 million in trade operations by our trade arm, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), and $90 million from other Islamic Development Bank funds and operations”.
He said in addition, the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC), its investment guarantee arm has provided $1.1 billion as business insured and $1 billion as a new insurance commitment to help attract businesses and insure them.
“With the IsDB active portfolio in Nigeria standing now at $1.2 billion and we have completed about 55 percent of all of those projects.
“And we look forward to strengthening relations on bilateral relations. Out of the 36 states in Nigeria, IsDB has investments in 16 states. I applaud the federal government of Nigeria for emphasizing the diversification of the economy,” he added.
Aljasser said the bank will try to boost activities of the private sector activities of the private arm of the IsDB to assist the development of the private sector and the economic diversification programme of the government.
“The IsDB is keen to continue to engage Nigeria on its strategic priorities areas such as economic and social infrastructure, and advisory support for strengthening Islamic financial services.
“IsDB is committed to supporting Nigeria to deal with the recovery phase of COVID-19 including providing the necessary support to the private sector to create and revive economic growth. Two projects, SAPZ and the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline – very important projects for Nigeria’s hydrocarbon and the rest of the world”.
Earlier, the Minister in her welcome remarks, said the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) is a Multilateral Financial Institution established to foster the economic development and social progress of its 56 member Countries adding that Nigeria is currently the 4th largest shareholder with 8.75% share that entitled it to have a permanent seat on the board of Executive Directors.
The purpose of the visit according to her, is to strengthen collaboration between the Bank and Nigeria, as well as serve as an avenue to discuss the IsDB Group’s Strategy Update & Alignment and Member Country Partnership Strategy (MCPS) for the period 2023-2025 anchored on Nigeria’s Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) 2021-2025 among others.
According to her, what Islamic Development Bank Offers include:
• Provides financial assistance to member Countries in forms of economic and social development such as Concessionary Loan, Non-Concessionary (Ordinary Financing) and Grants;
• establish and operate special funds for specific purposes in addition to setting up trust funds;
• assisting in the promotion of foreign trade especially in capital goods, among member Countries;
• providing technical assistance to member countries; and
• extending training facilities for personnel engaged in development activities in Muslim countries to conform to the IDB principles.
Ahmed noted Nigeria became a regional operational hub of the Bank in Africa in 2017 as the Bank expanded its existing country gateway office in Abuja, to serve as a key regional office.
She explained that he Regional office coordinates the operations of the Bank in its West and Central African member-countries, which constitute a majority of the 27 African countries in the Institution, notably Nigeria, Gabon, Niger, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, the Republic of Cameroon, Uganda, Senegal, Djibouti and Guinea Bissau, among others.
