Seychelles sign loan accords with development partners |14 October 2014

Seychelles has signed a number of loan agreements with development partners.
This took place on the sidelines of the 2014 IMF/World Bank annual meetings in Washington D.C, USA, where Seychelles is being represented by a high level delegation led by the Minister for Finance, Trade and Investment (MFTI), Pierre Laporte.

First, Minister Laporte (on behalf of the government of Seychelles) signed two agreements with the World Bank – one for the recently approved Development Policy Loan, and a second for the innovative Cat-DDO loan, a contingent facility for natural disasters. Both agreements are for US $7 million each. It is to be noted that Seychelles is the first African country to implement a Cat-DDO.

Minister Laporte also signed a US $4 million loan agreement with the Opec Fund for International Development (OFID) for the Perseverance island infrastructure Phase II project.  

The Seychelles delegation also held talks with other bilateral and multilateral partners on other initiatives and infrastructure projects for which Seychelles is seeking support.  

On the sidelines of this year's annual meetings, the Seychelles delegation also held talks with the Bretton Woods institutions on various programmes being supported by those institutions, including the recently approved three-year Extended Fund Facility with the IMF, which is due for Board discussions in December, and the next Development Policy Operation with the World Bank.

Minister Laporte also chaired two important initiatives that are being supported by the World Bank, namely the Bank's Small States Forum, and the Accelerated Programme for Economic Integration (APEI), an initiative involving five countries in the region – Seychelles, Mauritius, Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia -- focusing on reforms in the areas of trade facilitation and investment climate.

Besides Minister Laporte, the Seychelles delegation include Central Bank Governor (CBS) Caroline Abel and officials from the MFTI (Damien Thesee, Fatime Kante) and the CBS (Brian Commettant and Lenny Palit).