Partnership between Congo and the World Bank - Two new financing agreements amounting to 28 billion CFA Francs signed in the sectors of diversification of the economy and statistics

21 Jun, 2018

On Thursday, June 21, 2018, the Congolese government (represented by the Minister of Finance and Budget, honourable Calixte Nganongo) and the World Bank (represented by its director of operations, Jean Christophe Carret) signed two financing agreements for the diversification of the economy and statistics in Brazzaville.

 

The two agreements represents an amount of 25 million dollars each (i.e. 14 billion 231 million 950 493 CFA Francs) . They both amount to 28 billion CFA Francs and were signed in the presence of the Minister of Planning, Statistics and Regional Integration, Mrs. Ingrid Olga Ghislaine Ebouka-Babackas, Governor of the  World Bank in Congo. The financing backs up the Congolese State budget and is intended for the double aims of the World Bank, eradication of extreme poverty and promotion of a sustainable and inclusive growth.

The first agreement is about the project for the support of the development of businesses and competition (PADEC). According to M. Carret, the project aims to take up the challenges of the diversification of the economy, by laying the stress on the improvement  of the business  environment and institutional capacity building for the implementation of reforms, particularly in the sectors with a high growth potential such as logistics, agro-industry and tourism ; the setting up of mechanisms  for the technical and financial support of  small and medium businesses and Congolese entrepreneurs».

PADEC results from the lessons learned from the project for the support of the diversification of the economy (PADE),  which ended recently and highlighted the issues of diversification of the economy nationwide.

PADEC activities will contribute to achieve the objectives of the government contained  in the National Development  Plan and its strategy of diversification of the economy and employment promotion, in accordance with the country strategy  which is being jointly drafted with the World Bank Group.

The second agreement is about an additional financing of the capacity building and statistics project, as statistics is an important decision making tool. The availability  of reliable statistics in real time is a major challenge that the Republic of the Congo is committed  to take up, particularly in the field of follow-up and assessment of the implementation of the National Development Plan.

As a reminder, within the framework of the reforms for the setting up of an effective national statistics system (NSS), the Congolese government  had signed a first financing agreement  on PSTAT with the World Bank for a five-year period  from 2015 to 2019. The agreement has enabled  to get basic statistics tools like  the pilot mapping  of the fifth population and habitat census, the support for the drafting  of the national development plan  and the diagnosisof the national statistics system.

Press department of the Ministry of Finance

Category:NEWS
Sub Category:THE MINISTER