Exim Bank China Lends Ivory Coast $500 Million for Hydro

Exim Bank China Lends Ivory Coast $500 Million for Hydro
By Olivier Monnier
Bloomberg
Jan 9, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/exim-bank-china-lends-ivory-coast-500-million-for-hydro.html

The Export-Import Bank of China will lend Ivory Coast $500 million for a
hydroelectric dam built by Sinohydro Corp., the biggest amount given by
the lender to the West African nation in 30 years, Ambassador Guoqing
Zhang said in a statement.

Works started on Jan. 2 on the 275-megawatt plant at Soubre, in the
southwest, and will continue for more than four years, Oil and Energy
Minister Adama Toungara said in a separate statement. Both were handed
to reporters in Abidjan, the commercial capital, today.

The plant will allow the country to "face the nation's growing
consumption" of electricity, Toungara said. Operations will start by
late 2017 or early 2018 and the facility will be the biggest hydropower
producer in Ivory Coast.

Ivory Coast plans to invest $4 billion over the next six years in energy
infrastructure to boost power output by 80 percent, Toungara said in
November. The country currently produces 70 percent of electricity
demand through natural-gas fueled thermal plants, he said today.

After contracting 4.7 percent in 2011, Ivory Coast's economy grew more
than 8.5 percent in 2012, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the
International Monetary Fund, said in Abidjan on Jan 7. The government is
targeting 9 percent growth this year and 10 percent in 2014.
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