The OPEC Fund for International Development (the OPEC Fund) and the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) have signed a cooperation agreement. The agreement will support the organizations as they work together to promote the socioeconomic development of the private sector in their beneficiary countries.

The agreement was signed by the OPEC Fund Director-General Dr Abdulhamid Alkhalifa and TDB President and Chief Executive Admassu Tadesse at the OPEC Fund’s headquarters in Vienna. It will advance the growing strategic partnership into co-financing, with more information sharing and joint transactions, so that the development impact of the two organizations is maximized.

Dr Alkhalifa said: “We have built a strong partnership with TDB, elevated to a strategic level in 2018 when we became a shareholder after several years of cooperation, to the benefit of our overlapping beneficiary countries. We are pleased to deepen our cooperation in the form of this agreement. The continent of Africa remains a central part of the OPEC Fund’s development focus, with more than US$709 million in new operations approved in 2018 alone via our public, private, trade finance and grant financing windows.”

Tadesse said: “We value our growing relationship with the OPEC Fund – one that was taken to new heights last year when it became one of our institutional shareholders. We are thus delighted to advance our partnership yet again. Via this agreement, we look forward to jointly promoting the financing of private sector projects and transactions to advance sustainable development in the region. In line with TDB’s triple bottom-line mandate, more than half of the Bank’s portfolio directly and indirectly contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals.”

In 2018, the OPEC Fund signed a loan agreement of US$60 million with TDB to support international trade in the bank’s countries of operation. Also in 2018, the OPEC Fund invested US$20 million in the Bank’s capital stock providing a platform for the bank to enhance its financing of trade and infrastructure in its beneficiary countries. More generally, a partnership of 10 years has seen the OPEC Fund approve financing to TDB of some US$150 million for the benefit of countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.