Af Sanday Chogo Kabange, AfricaNews reporter in Lusaka, Malawi
LUSAKA, Januar 7, 2010: India has offered Zambia a combined credit line of US$125, 000 for various developmental projects.Indian Vice President, Hamid Ansari who is on a tour of Zambia, Malawi and Botswana has stated that his country plans to offer credit lines of about 5,4 billion US dollars by 2012 to African countries. It has so far extended lines of credit of about 1 billion US dollar and will give an additional grant of 500 million US dollar to these nations.
India has extended a $75 million line of credit to Zambia, which is augmenting its power generation capacity and other infrastructure to meet demand from copper miners. This is in addition to the $50 million line of credit agreement signed between the government of Zambia and Export-Import Bank of India for the 120MW Itezhi Tezhi hydropower project, a venture between Zambia Electricity Supply Co. Ltd (Zesco) and Tata Africa Holdings (SA) Pty Ltd.
A line of credit is a specified amount of money a borrower may obtain without a special credit check.
-We will now await proposals from Zambian authorities in the area of health, infrastructure, education among others to utilize this line of credit, stated Vivek Katju, secretary (west) in ministry of external affairs.
Katju is accompanying Ansari on his visit. -This $50 million will go towards Zesco’s equity participation in this (Itezhi Tezhi) project, Katju said. Zambia’s power demand is about 1,500MW.
