EBRD considering $100 mln loan to accelerate climate action in Egypt

Doaa A.Moneim , Monday 15 Nov 2021

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) considers extending $100 million to Egypt’s national bank Banque Misr for the sake of accelerating climate action efforts in the country.

Weathering climate change

According to the EBRD, the proceeds of the anticipated loan sum will be utilised to finance investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies across the industrial, commercial, transport and agricultural sectors in the Egyptian market.

The loan will be used to lend the local private sector, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in line with the standards and reporting requirements for the bank’s Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) in Egypt, according to the EBRD.

GEFF is a facility created by the EBRD with an aim of helping Egyptian businesses invest in high-performing technologies by providing financing through local participating financial institutions.

“The project will be supported by a comprehensive technical cooperation programme to provide implementation support to BM, its customers and verification of the outcome of completed projects”, said the EBRD.

They also said that the approval on the loan is expected to be announced on 15 December.

By early February, the EBRD is expected to approve its new country strategy for Egypt through 2026, the EBRD’s vice president Alain Pilloux told Al-Ahram Weekly in an interview during the official visit he paid to the country in October.

He also said that what guides the bank’s operations in the country is its desire to impact Egypt’s development. Egypt is a founding member of the EBRD, and since the start of its operations in 2012, the bank has invested more than €8 billion in 136 projects across the country.

Egypt is one of the EBRD’s founding members. In 2020, Egypt became EBRD’s largest country of operations for the third year in a row in the Southern Eastern and Mediterranean region with the bank’s investments accounting for more than € 1 billion of the € 2.13 billion of the total development financing provided to the region’s countries.

The EBRD has been active in Egypt since 2012. During this time, the Bank has rapidly scaled up its operations, with a total portfolio exceeding $4.6 billion covering 127 operations, with 80 percent headed to the country’s private sector.

Egypt was officially selected to host the upcoming COP27 conference in 2022.

Short link: