EDF financing

The Commission has just taken these financing decisions following a favourable opinion from the EDF Committee:

Burundu, Rwanda and Tauzania

Bukombe - lsaka road
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 42 000 000

This project sets out to asphalt the 113 km Bukombe - lsaka stretch of the surfaced road linking Isaka with Rusomo and the Rwandese frontier. A road - rail terminal for goods in transit to landlocked Rwanda (and to a lesser extent other countries in the sub - region too) is being built at Isaka, also with EDF funds, so the new project is one of a series of Community - financed schemes to improve the landlocked countries’ transport infrastructure by means of the Tanzanian central corridor. It will also supply maintenance equipment and material to enable the Tanzanian authorities to maintain the whole of the Isaka - Rusomo route.

Solomon Islands

Rural health facilities
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 3000000

Moderate efficiency of a complete health service is the aim here, as a basis for the development of primary health care, with restrictions on nonessential consultations in expensive hospital departments.

The project, which will help the Ministry of Health and the Medical Services put the national health plan into practice, comprises three main complementary, properly structured operations:

- a system of health information and cost recovery;
- permanent training courses for nurses;
- a general equipment and infrastructure programme.

Angola, Cameroon, CAR, Comoros, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda, Sao Tomnd PrincipZa and Zambia

Regional cultural cooperation in the Bantu world

Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 5 600 000

This cultural cooperation programme has been designed to help develop and bring a dynamic approuch to Bantu culture in all the countries which share it and are part of it. It is being run from CICIBA, the International Centre for Bantu Civilisations, in Libreville and the idea is to support a series of cultural activities to benefit people in the member countries of CICIBA and Cameroon.

Memory and creativity and their place in the development process are the focal themes of the programme, which will start by helping with the collection in the field, the conservation and the exploitation of Bantu knowledge and know - how (oral tradition, language, music, dance, manufacturing processes, etc. ) in all the countries concerned by multidisciplinary teams trained and equipped for this purpose. A series of (art and craft, drama, literary, etc.) microprojects will be run alongside this to make for better appreciation of the cultural dimension and improve on the way it is included in the development process. Encouragement will also be given to present - day artists by means of such things as an artwork purchasing centre and support for various regional cultural events.

St Helena

Maritime protection installations
4th, 5th and 6th EDFs
Grant: ECU 2 711 000

Coastal protection facilities around St Helena are to be improved by the construction of concrete groynes at St James’ and Rupert’s Bays. The present system can no longer cope with the destruction wrought by heavy storms and the infrastructure has to be improved if the installations on the coast are to be preserved and the wellbeing of the local people maintained.

Falkland Islands

Aid for agriculture
4th, 5th and 6th EDFs
Grant: ECU I 557000

This project will be providing funds to finance the Falklands’ agricultural assistance system run on behalf of the Government by the Falkland Islands Development Corporation (FIDC). The system helps local farmers with financing to invest in infrastructure to stimulate the growth of the islands’ main productive sector.

Wallis and Futuna

Improvements to roods
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU I 300000
Loan: ECU 600 000

This scheme, which is part of the territory’s road improvement initiative, is also intended to give the islands a degree of independence by providing plant for public works.

The Public Works Department will be endowed with new plant and equipment so it can both ensure new (road and drainage) installations and maintain the existing network in Wallis and Futuna. Roadworks will also be carried out over 6.95 km (2.7 km on Futuna and 4.25 km on Wallis).

Members of ECOWAS and the CEAO

Automatic statistical and customs data processing system
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 5000000

The idea here is to encourage regional integration and boost trade in West Africa by setting up a regional data processing system to handle trade statistics and customs information in ECOWAS and the CEAO.

The project will standardise statistics and customs data and centralise them in the region. Successive schemes will be run to define a common method of compiling external trade statistics in the countries belonging to the two organisations, produce a comparative table of nomenclature and then get the customs procedures computerised in the member countries with the TRACE programme devised by the Statistical Office of the European Community.

Nigeria

Assistance for the FIIRO Research Institute
Fifth EDF
Grant: ECU I 200000

Technical and financial assistance is to be provided here to three institutes - FIIRO (a federal body dealing with industrial research), PRODA (project development) and the NBRRI (research into roads and construction) - so that applied research programmes can be run to help solve current and potential problems in the industrial sector.

Netherlands Antilles

Business development plan
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU I 500 000

The business development plan is part of a global scheme to boost the productivity of the manufacturing industry, commercial services and international trade.

The idea is to improve the potential of activities in these sectors, particularly with export in mind. The direct effect of this financing proposal should be a 15 % average annual increase in the sales of manufacturing, trading and service companies over the period of the project.

The plan provides for technical assistance with setting up a management unit in an organisation called CURACAO Incorporated (a consortium of firms and bodies from both the private and public sectors) and a fund to help with marketing, training, management, investment and feasibility studies in existing and future firms.

Tanzania, Za, Burundi,
Rwanda and Uganda

Shuttle trains
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 36000000

Goods to and from Za, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda transit across Tanzania through its central corridor and goods to and from Zambia, Malawi and other SADCC countries through its southern corridor. All these countries use Tanzanian facilities, in the light of corridor capacity and political situation, for their imports and exports. This project aims to improve the transit of goods through the central corridor by providing the Tanzanian Railway Company with the rolling stock to make up and run six shuttles to and from the landlocked countries of Za, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. Financial support for technical assistance with traffic management is also included.

The shuttles will only be used to shift transit goods for the landlocked nations from the port of Dar - esSalaam by the TRC central line to Kigoma (for Zaire and Burundi), Isaka (for Rwanda and Burundi) and Mwanza (for Uganda).

Equatorial Guinea

Technical and institutional support for the forestry sector
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU I 190000

Forestry is important to this country’s economy, accounting for almost 50% of export earnings and around 37% of national tax revenue in 1987. But since production is still far short of the potential figure, the nation’s development strategy is largely based on expanding activity in the sector and a number of funders are sending aid with the twofold aim of bringing exploitation up to the appropriate level and maintaining the balance of the tropical forest as an ecosystem and an economic asset.

The project is to provide:

- aerial photographic and radar coverage of continental Equatorial Guinea to produce a detailed inventory of the forestry potential;
- logistical support and technical assistance for OCIPEF, the forestry information and promotion board;
- training for national staff.

Burkina Faso

Comoice Scheme
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 3420000

This is the consolidation and extension of a lowland rice development operation in Comorovince in south - western Burkina Faso. It follows on from the first project to develop rice - growing in the Comoegional Development Organisation, which has had ECU 2.9 million in Community financing since 1978.

The present scheme, phase two, involves developing a total of 620 ha (spread over 10 different sites), using partial irrigation, to add to the 850 ha (seven sites) already developed, while the drive to organise the exploitation of the plots, with peasant management and more modern growing methods, is continued alongside.

Roads in the commercial district of Ouagadougou
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 3 730 000

Roads serving Ouagadougou’s new central market are to be rehabilitated under this scheme. The work, which involves rebuilding about 5.6 km of road and 7.4 km of channels, includes attendant investments in such items as parking spaces and bus stops.

This is one of the priority urban projects for the development of the commercial district of the capital, the first stage of which was the rebuilding of the main central market, and it complies with the general specifications laid down in August 1985 on land use, traffic and the nature of the infrastructure used to develop the area.

Members of RECTAS and other countries of Central and West Africa

Support for RECTAS
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 3 000 000

The aim of the project is to improve RECTAS’ training (and research) potential and thereby give the African countries more independence in such areas as training in photographic surveying, cartography, photographic reproduction and remote sensing for resource inventory and management.

The project, to be run with the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, the leading partner, and the Groupement pour le Dloppement de la Tdction Aspatiale, an associate, will provide RECTAS with institutional support between July 1990 and June 1995.

Africa in general and the west and central regions in particular will get the benefit of this improvement in the services RECTAS provides.

The project includes training in the Netherlands and France for RECTAS staff - i.e. study grants for courses and practical traineeships (short missions) designed specially to update knowledge.

Uganda

Training programme
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU I 500 000

This is to:

- improve those areas of the public sector to which Community aid is granted;
- raise vocational training standards.

This will be achieved mainly through grants for study in Europe, training courses in Uganda, a supply of teaching materials and equipment and the provision of technical assistance.

Cd’Ivoire

Sectoral import programme
Sixth EDF
Grant: ECU 41 000 000

The programme is the result of the National Authorising Officer’s request to reorient the indicative programme to make for financing for a sectoral import programme to back up the economic recovery drive the Government is currently running in coordination with the Washington institutions. A first phase of financial stabilisation should considerably reduce the public finance and balance of payments deficits. The Government has already taken steps to cut public spending, particularly in the cocoa and coffee sectors and in the civil service, and operating and investment expenditure has gone down, too. A second phase should see the right conditions for medium - term recovery through reforms to make the country economically competitive again. The restructuring the Government is to undertake (though agriculture and energy sector adjustment programmes) has been negotiated with the IBRD.

The ECU 41 m programme involves the country getting about 2 300 000 barrels of crude via SIR, the Ivorian refining company, which will pay the counterpart funds into a special account at the treasury, to be spent on rural development (about 60%) and health (about 40%).

EIB

Jamaica: ECU I m for equity participations in small and medium - scale companies

The European Investment Bank is providing a global loan of ECU I m to Trafalgar Development Bank (TDB), a private sector institution in Jamaica. TDB will use the proceeds of the loan to take equity participations in small and medium - scale enterprises in the industrial, agroindustrial and tourism sectors throughout Jamaica.

The funds are advanced for 25 years at 2% in the form of a conditional loan from risk capital resources provided for under the Third Lomonvention and managed by the EIB.

TDB was incorporated in 1983 and major shareholders are eight Jamaican private companies, as well as Deutsche Finanzierungsgesellschaft fur Beteiligungen in Entwicklungslandern (DEG) and Nederlandse Financieringsmaatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMA).

This operation is the fourth in Jamaica under the third Lomonvention and the first from risk capital resources. A global loan of ECU 10 m was granted to the National Development Bank in 1986 for financing small and medium - sized projects in industry, agro - industry and tourism. In 1987 the EIB provided ECU 5.2 m for the extension of the port of Montego Bay, and in 1989 ECU 16 m for the extension und upgrading of the Kingston container terminal.

Malawi: ECU 2.5 m for water supply

The European Investment Bank also provided two loans totalling ECU 2.5 m for expanding the water supply in Blantyre, Malawi’s major industrial and commercial centre.

The funds are being made available under LomII to the Republic of Malawi in form of:

- a loan of ECU I m from the EIB’s own resources, for on - lending to Blantyre Water Board (BWB), the official body responsible for the city’s water supply. The loan is advanced for 15 years at 6.05 %, allowing for an interest rate subsidy drawn from EDF resources;

- a conditional loan of ECU 1.5 m for 20 years at 2% from risk capital resources provided for under the Convention and managed by the EIB. The State will use the proceeds of the loan to fund a convertible loan to BWB.

The project, which is part of a larger investment programme requiring some ECU 25 m over a period to the mid - 199Os, comprises the refurbishment of pumps ensuring the transmission of water from source to the urban network, expansion of treatment installations, enlargement of the city’s main reservoir and the study and design in preparation for the next phase of the expansion programme. The investment will allow BWB to meet Blantyre’s growing water requirements and will ensure greater reliability of supply. Works are scheduled to be completed by the end of 1991.
ACP GROUP

15th anniversary of the ACP Group

The 15th anniversary of the signing of the agreement setting up the ACP Group (Georgetown, 6 June 1975) was celebrated in ACP House in Brussels. ACP Secretary - General Ghebray Berhane went over the main stages in the life of the Group at the press conference held on this occasion and announced that the ACP Ambassadors had just met to discuss cooperation within the ACP Group, its experience, its achievements in relation to its aims, its difficulties and, most important, its future - a subject to be taken further by a special working party. This, which comprised the officers of the Committee of Ambassadors, two or three other co - opted members and the Secretary General himself, was expected to complete the first part of its work in July and to prepare for a second, specific meeting in the second half of the year.

The anniversary celebrations continued in the evening with a reception in a Brussels hotel to which many ACP and European personalities were invited.

Various speakers recalled the difficult history of the ACP Group, which is now finding it has an important part to play in international economic relations.

In his capacity as Secretary - General of the ACP - EEC Cultural Foundation, the Mauritian Ambassador, Raymond Chasle, the doyen of the ACP diplomatic corps, also gave the results of the competition run two year ago to find the best answers to a quiz on the ACPs and the best technical invention by one or more young ACP nationals.

The quiz winners, youngsters from the CAR ( 1st prize) and Burkina Faso (2nd prize), will be getting flight tickets to Europe via Kenya, and Bfrs 1000 000 (about US $ 30 000) goes to the winning inventor, a young Tanzanian who devised a machine to process sugar cane.

Music for the reception, folksongs from Nigeria, was provided by one of that country’s best bands.

ACP AMBASSADORS

Two new Ambassadors, from Rwanda and Sudan, have presented their credentials to the Presidents of the Council and the Commission of the European Communities.

Frans Ngarukiyintwali, a 50 year old who began a lifetime’s career in his country’s diplomatic service in 1964, has been Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Director - General for External Relations and Secretary General at the Foreign Ministry and spent 10 years (1979 - 89) as Foreign Minister before coming to Brussels.

Saeed Saad Mahgoub Saad, the new Sudanese Ambassador, now 54, qualified in economics at the Universities of East Anglia and Leicester in the United Kingdom. He left a short career in banking to enter the diplomatic service and has since held various posts, including that of Sudan’s Permanent Representative to the UN and Ambassador to Japan, South Korea and Australia.

NAMIBIA

A high - level delegation visits the Commission

A ministerial delegation from Namibia led by Mr Ben Amathila, Minister of Trade and Industry, held exploratory talks with Commission officials in Brussels from 31 May to 6 June prior to the country’s accession to the Lomonvention. The delegation, which included Gert Hanekom, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Deon Gous, deputy secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Peter Manning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and H. W. Kreft, Managing Director of the Namibian Meat Board, met several times with Vice - President Manuel Marin and held meetings with Dieter Frisch, Director - General for Development, and his two deputies Peter Pooley and Philippe Soubestre.

The purpose of the visit, which was made at the invitation of Commissioner Marin, was to get first hand information on the Convention and become acquainted with its procedures. A few days after Namibia’s independence, the country expressed its desire to accede to the Lomonvention.

The issues raised during this visit covered Namibia’s main areas of interest, including trade arrangements, financial and technical cooperation, Stabex, Sysmin and the Beef Protocol. At a press conference in Brussels, Mr Amathila said that his country was hoping to be given a realistic quota for beef exports to the EEC.

The formal negotiations for accession are expected to start in July and by September it is hoped that Nambia will become a full member of the Convention. It will then be able, under the transitional measures, to benefit from the trade provisions. Only when the Convention is finally ratified, however, will its financial and technical provisions be applicable to all ACP countries.