IslamicFinance.de

The Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector the private sector arm of Islamic Development Bank Group and the African Export-Import Bank signed a line of financing agreement for a $100-million facility on December 24th in Jeddah.

The $100-million line of financing facility will be utilized by Afreximbank to provide Shariah-compliant financing to small and medium-sized enterprises in its member countries in Africa. Afreximbank has a solid pipeline of projects in the industrial, communication, technology, health care, construction and agricultural sectors that would be financed by the ICD line of financing.

The Kenyan Treasury will push through the country’s first Sukuk bond in the coming year. The changes will see the Public Finance Management Act amended to allow the issuance of the bond, which has been in the works since 2014.
Treasury CS Henry Rotich said that the Capital Markets Act, the Co-operatives Societies Act and Sacco Societies Act are also lined up for ammendment.
The government plans to borrow up to Sh256 billion from external sources in the next fiscal year, to plug a budget deficit of Sh524 billion. The State has in the recent past taken up foreign loans in form of the Eurobond and syndicated loans from commercial lenders. Kenya has been mulling over a Sukuk bond for the past two fiscal years, given its highly discounted nature, which would provide cheaper financing compared to commercial loans. The lack of the necessary regulatory framework has, however, delayed this option. In the current fiscal year, Kenya has turned to syndicated loans to finance part of her budget deficit. These loans include the just signed $800 million loan from four international banks, and a similar $500 million facility taken from the African Export-Import bank.