(DNE File Photo)
By Hossam Mounir
Banque Du Caire intends to pump $60m into the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company’s loan. The loan is worth $521m, coordinated by Banque Misr, according to Mounir El-Zahid, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Banque Du Caire.
“Projects of electricity and energy come on top of the projects the bank is interested to fund, due to their positive impact on pushing development and meeting the urgent needs of citizens,” said El-Zahid.
El-Zahid added that the aim of pumping the fund in favour of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company is to build the power plants needed for the third electricity emergency plan of 2015. The plan is to add 44 power units with a total capacity of 2,672 MW, which would significantly contributes to solving the electricity crisis in summer 2015.
El-Zahid clarified that it has been decided the bank would sign joint funding operations worth over $3bn in the next period. The decided agreements would be directed to funding a lot of vital projects in the country.
Ayman Mokhtar, Head of Corporate Banking at Banque Du Caire, said the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company loan is one of the largest joint funding operations granted by banks in Egypt to the electricity sector. This reflects the level of trust of the local funding institutions in theusefulness of these projects.
Mokhtar added that the funding period is five years from the contract’s signing, with the supplying and building operations of all the plan’s units expected to be completed before next summer.
