China Development Bank provides EUR 300 million loan to the Bulgarian Development Bank to support Bulgarian businesses (Linked to Project ID#66486)

On July 6, 2018, during the Seventh Annual Meeting of China's and Central and Eastern Europe's (CEE)'s Heads of Governments under the 16+1 framework, China Development Bank (CDB) and the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) signed an EUR 1.5 billion (~$1.8 billion USD) financial cooperation framework agreement. The framework agreement, which is captured via Project ID#66486, provided guidelines for EUR 1.5 billion worth of financial cooperation between BDB and CDB for five years under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). EUR 1 billion was allocated for joint financing, project financing, joint equity investment funds, syndicated lending, and other projects of mutual interest within the BRI as agreed upon by BDB and CDB. EUR 500 million was allocated for bilateral co-financing for BDB for BRI projects and projects in line with BDB's strategy, including (but not limited to) support for the energy, communications, transportation, and agricultural sectors, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Then, on December 13, 2018, BDB and CDB signed an EUR 300 million loan agreement, which served as the first tranche disbursed under this financial cooperation framework agreement. The proceeds of the EUR 300 million loan (captured via Project ID#88314) were to be used by BDB for on-lending to support Bulgarian businesses. The loan carried the following borrowing terms: a maturity period of 10 years and an annual interest rate of 6-Month EURIBOR rate plus an unspecified margin. As of December 31, 2020, the loan had achieved a 100% disbursement rate and its (principal) amount outstanding was EUR 296,250,000.

Additional details

1. The Chinese name of the financial cooperation framework agreement is 《中国国家开发银行与保加利亚发展银行在“一带一路”倡议下开展15亿欧元金融合作协议》.

Number of official sources

4

Number of total sources

6