Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On September 25, 2018, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) signed a $180,000,000 USD buyer's credit loan facility with Integrated Telecom Company Ltd. (ITC) — a Saudi telecom provider commonly known by its trade name of Salam — to develop its gigabit broadband infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the borrower was to use the loan proceeds as additional liquidity to fund its high-speed fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network rollout to provide 640,000 homes with gigabit broadband connectivity, a project overseen by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and part of the government's Saudi Vision 2030. ITC signed the agreement for the SAR 3.5 billion ($930 million USD) FTTH Project in May 2017. It began work on the FTTH Project in August 2017. In 2020, ICBC restructured this loan; however, the terms of the restructuring are unknown.
Staff comments
1. Integrated Telecom Company (Salam) (Arabic: شركة الاتصالات المتكاملة) is currently known by its trade name Salam (Arabic: شركة سلام). It is a private Saudi telecom provider established in 2005 offering broadband, interconnection and Satellite services for businesses, consumers and wholesale segments of the Saudi market. Salam is part of Mawarid Holding Group of Companies, a diversified Saudi conglomerate. The Mawarid Holding Group of Companies consists of 27 subsidiaries engaged in 4 major business areas, including media and communications, investment services, projects, and trading.