"The DFC board of directors has approved a new 250 million dollars debt facility to support the CFA in its efforts to develop high-value, high-quality infrastructure across the African continent, pending approval of the US Congress", reads a statement sent to Lusa.
The financial institution adds that 10 million dollars will also be lent to Seba Foods, from Zambia, "the first US food and agriculture investment in the Lobito Corridor".
The announcement was made following a forum on the Lobito Corridor, this week, in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, which was attended not only by the President of this country, located between Angola and Mozambique, Hakainde Hichilema, but also the senior advisor to the US President, Amos Hochstein, and the leader of the CFA, Samaila Zubairu.
More than 250 business and political leaders from Angola, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the European Union also participated in the forum, according to the statement.
The Lobito Corridor Private Sector Forum, within the scope of the Partnership for Investment and Global Infrastructures (PGI), is located in the Lobito Corridor, which connects Benguela, in Angola, to Zambia, through a 1200-kilometer railway line, the first strategic corridor, and was launched by the North American President at the G7 summit in Japan in May last year, under the G7 PGI initiative.
At this meeting, the US Development Agency announced a loan for a feasibility study of a 200 megawatt solar plant in Solwezi, Zambia, an agreement with the Canadian mining company Ivanhoe to use the railway line to transport energy clean, and yet another agreement for a cobalt refinery in Chingola, Zambia, "with the aim of building the first cobalt production plant on the African continent for electric vehicles".
These agreements, the statement concludes, are in addition to the billion-dollar investments that the North American government already made in Angola last year, which shows "the importance of the Lobito Corridor, a vital logistics platform that connects the region to international markets and which is proof that strategic investments in infrastructure can mobilize private investment from various sectors to promote the region's transformative economic development".
