Nigeria has received approval from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) for a total financing of $1.8 billion.
The facility consists of $971 million in project financing from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), $288 million from the bank’s private sector affiliate, the Islamic Corporation for the Development (ICD), $477 million in trade operations from its trade arm, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), and $90 million from other IsDB funds and operations.
Nigeria now ranks as the fourth-largest shareholder in the 56-member IsDB with a stake that has increased to 8.75 percent.
Yesterday in Abuja, the approval was announced by the bank’s chairman and president, Muhammad Sulaiman Al Jasser, during an official visit with Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget, and national planning.
In order to help recruit firms and insure them, the bank’s investment guarantee arm, the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC), has also contributed $1.1 billion as company insured and $1 billion as a new insurance commitment.
In fact, the IsDB’s active portfolio in Nigeria is currently worth $1.2 billion, and the projects have progressed by around 55%.
Given that IsDB has interests in 16 of Nigeria’s 36 states, he said the Islamic bank looks forward to fostering bilateral ties.
He claimed that the IsDB is aware of Nigeria’s opportunities and potential for private sector development and that it will work to increase activities of the private arm of the IsDB in order to support the growth of the private sector and the government’s economic diversification policy.
The IsDB is eager to work with Nigeria on its strategic priorities, he continued, including areas like economic and social infrastructure and advisory help for enhancing Islamic financial services.
He emphasized that the IsDB is dedicated to helping Nigeria deal with the COVID-19 recovery phase, especially by giving the private sector the assistance it needs to spark and sustain economic growth.
He stated that the bank will require a plot of land in order to construct its permanent office in Abuja, while also offering support for the SAPZ and the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline projects.
In her remarks, the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, made a suggestion that Nigeria was also collaborating with the organization to erect a 300-bed international hospital in Kaduna state.
She expressed: “Nigeria has signed an agreement with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) to build a 300-bed specialised hospital in Kaduna State. The project will provide comprehensive and qualitative tertiary health services to the sub-region.
“The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) is a Multilateral Financial Institution established to foster the economic development and social progress of its 56 member countries. 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,” she stated.
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (ADB), has advised the Nigerian government to use the floods that are destroying the nation as an opportunity for agriculture.
Adesina, the Minister of Agriculture, said the Nigerian flood is a phenomenon that is well known to him in his remarks yesterday in Abuja at the official opening of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones in Nigeria.
He stated: “I know this very well. I had to deal with the worst floods in Nigeria when I was Minister of Agriculture. We responded very fast, launched the nation’s first dry season farming programme, and produced so much food in the dry season.
We turned the flood into a new opportunity and Nigeria avoided a food crisis. Floods may wash away some land and harvests, but we must not let the hopes of farmers be washed away. Agriculture is critical for the survival of any nation.”
Adesina asserts that since 65% of the uncultivated arable land needed to feed the world’s projected nine billion people by 2050 would be in Africa, what Africa does with agriculture will dictate how food is produced worldwide in the future.
