Africa Growing Together Fund provides $30 million loan to support ETC Group Limited’s Agriculture Value Chain Program (Linked to Umbrella Record ID#36104)

Project narrative

On May 22, 2014, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the People's Bank of China (PBOC) signed an agreement for the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) (see Umbrella Record ID#36104). The purpose of this $2 billion loan facility was to finance large development projects in Africa between 2014 and 2024. The AGTF is sponsored by the PBOC and the administered by AfDB. Then, on August 3, 2023, AGTF and ETC Group Limited — a special purpose vehicle and joint venture of ETC Holdings Mauritius (59.2% equity stake), Mitsui & Co. Ltd (31.9% equity stake), Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund (Prif AfriVest Ltd) (8.84% equity stake), and Sunit Patel (0.06% equity stake) — signed a 2-year, $30 million trade finance soft commodity finance facility (SCFF) agreement (ID#5050130000851) to support ETC Group Limited’s pre-and post-shipment working capital requirements with a particular focus on export-oriented activities. This flow is captured in record ID #108532. On the same day, the African Development Bank (AfDB) issued a 2-year, $30 million SCFF (ID#2000130021480) to ETC Group Limited for the same purpose. Additionally, on August 3, 2023, AGTF and AfDB each issued a $30 million loan (ID#5050130000753 and ID#2000130021430) to ETC Group Limited to support the Agriculture Value Chain Program and thereby increase agriculture production and productivity by providing improved agricultural inputs and agronomic advisory services to local farmers while enhancing ETC Group Limited’s value-chain logistics and processing capacities across targeted 10 countries in Africa. These two loans carried 7-year maturities and 2-year grace periods. The AGTF loan is captured in record ID #108534. The ultimate beneficiaries of the loans are expect to be smallholder farmers (a significant number being women and youth entrepreneurs), whose productivity is expected to increase from the deployment of high-quality agricultural inputs. Rural women who are employed at various processing facilities in these countries are also expected to benefit.