Announcement of Twenty-Four Million US Dollars Loan for Industrial Development in Morocco on May 11, 1973

INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR .RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT 181.8 H STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON 0. C. 20433 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 Bank Press Release No. 73/24 Subject: $24.0 million loan for industrial May 11, 1973 development in Morocco The World Bank has approved a loan to Banque Nationale pour le Developpement Economique (BNDE) which is the principal Moroccan institution for financing industrial investment in Morocco, mainly through long-term loans for imported equipment. The Bank's $24. 0 million loan will cover part of the foreign exchange component of BNDE's estimated $50-$55 million equivalent lending through 1111. d-1974. The loan is the Bank's sixth to BNDE and brings total financing it • has provided in a little more than a decade to $121.5 million. Since its inception in 1959 to December 1972, BNDE approved 428 direct loans and equity operations for a total of $192 million equivalent. It also assists industrial development in Morocco by appraising and approving medium- term loans presented by commercial banks to the Central Bank for rediscount. A little more than one-third of BNDE's approvals are for textile and food processing projects; the mining and petrolel.Dll industries account for slightly more than one-quarter. About 85% of the development finance company's client enterprises are privately owned and about half of its loan approvals are for expansions and modernizations of existing companies. The Bank loan to BNDE carries interest at 7!,;% per annum and amortization will conform substantially to aggregate repayments from projects financed by • the proceeds of the loan • - 0 -