China Development Bank provides $179.37 million loan for acquisition of ten, A320-200 Airbus aircraft (Linked to #91793)

In 2010, China Development Bank (CDB) and the National Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan (NBU) (CDB) signed a $179.377 million loan agreement to partially finance the acquisition of ten, A320-200 Airbus aircraft for Uzbekistan Airways (captured via Project ID#87920). This CDB loan carried the following borrowing terms: a 10-year maturity, a 3-year grace period, an interest rate of 6-month LIBOR plus a 2.8% margin, and a 0.3% management fee. The National Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan on-lent the proceeds of the CDB loan to Uzbekistan Airways. The CDB also issued a $92.2 million loan for the same A320-200 Airbus aircraft acquisition project (captured via #91793). However, neither the precise commitment date nor the borrowing terms of this CDB loan are known. As of October 2011, six of the tend A320-200 Airbus planes had been acquired, and the remaining 4 were to be acquired by the end of the year.

Additional details

1. Some sources suggest that the proceeds of the $179.37 million CDB loan were used to finance the acquisition of 5 rather than 10 A320-200 Airbus aircraft. 2. The all-in interest rate was calculated by adding 2.8% to the average 6-month LIBOR rate in 2010 (0.519%). 3. This CDB loan is not included in the China’s Overseas Development Finance Dataset that Boston University's Global Development Policy Center published in December 2020. 4. This project is also known as the A320-200 Airbus Aircraft Acquisition Project or the Renovation and unification of the aircraft fleet of JSC "Uzbekistan Airways" Project. The Russian project title is проекта ‘Обновление и унификация парка воздушных судов НАК ‘Хаво Йуллари’. 5. For the time being, AidData assumes that the $179.37 million CDB loan and the $92.2 million CDB loan have identical commitment years and borrowing terms (since they supported the same project). However, this issue merits further investigation.

Number of official sources

6

Number of total sources

10