Zimbabwe gets loan to clear arrears of $1.7bn with World Bank and others
Zimbabwe has secured a syndicated loan put together by the African Export-Import Bank that will enable it to clear arrears of $1.7bn with the World Bank and African Development Bank (AFDB). The funds will allow the country to settle the $1.1bn it owes in interest and penalties and some principal debt to the World Bank, and $601m to the AFDB, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said. He didn’t name the lenders but said the rate on the loan is cheaper than that charged by the World Bank. "It should reduce our country-risk profile and also make us eligible for access to soft windows of those institutions — we need new inflows," Chinamasa said in an interview in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. "It also opens up other institutions to do business with us [and] also make us able to access international capital." Chinamasa has been leading efforts to revive the country’s struggling economy and tap fresh financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The economy has halved in size over th...
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