ICBC provides EUR 131 million loan for House of United Nations Organization (UNO) Project

On June 27, 2019, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) signed an EUR 131 million loan agreement with Société Envol Partenariats SA (塞内加尔恩沃合资股份有限公司) for the House of United Nations Organization (UNO) Project. Then, on August 16, 2019, the Government of Senegal issued a sovereign guarantee in support of the ICBC loan. The borrowing terms of the loan are unknown. However, it is known that the borrower was expected to use the proceeds of the loan to partially finance a commercial contract with Weihai International Economic & Technical Cooperative Co., Ltd. The purpose of the House of United Nations Organization (UNO) Project — a public-private partnership between the Government of Senegal and Envol Partenariats Senegal — is to construct the United Nations House in the Diamniadio district of Dakar, adjacent to the Senegal Sports City Project. The building sits on a 14 hectare site and it consists of ‘six wings distributed in propellers.’ Each wing of United Nations House is reminiscent of the blades of a wheel or the rays of the sun. The building occupies an area of 60,000 m2, including 40,000 m2 of offices and 1814 workstations. It has a 500-seat amphitheater hall, several seminar rooms, a restaurant, a travel agency, shops, a sports hall, an officials' room, and a bank. Part of the building is powered by photovoltaic panels. Upon completion, it is expected that the facility will house thousands of employees who work for 32 United Nations agencies. Weihai International Economic & Technical Cooperative Co., Ltd. is the contractor responsible for implementation. A formal groundbreaking ceremony took place on April 25, 2018. However, construction did not begin until April 2019. Then, on July 15, 2021, the building was ‘successfully topped out’ (after the last bucket of concrete was poured into the roof of the R+7 floor in Area 2 of Building C). The UN Secretary General conducted a project site inspection on May 1, 2022. The project was originally scheduled to reach completion by the end of June 2022.

Additional details

1. This project is also known as the United Nations Building Project and the United Nations West Africa Office Building Project. The Chinese project title is 塞内加尔联合国西非办公楼项目. The French project title is Le projet de Cité des Nations Unies de Diamniadio. 2. DLA Piper served as legal counsel for the transaction. 3. The loan agreement is referred to in Chinese as 《塞内加尔联合国办公楼项目贷款协议》 4. One source (http://wietc.com/news/show-1370.aspx) suggest that Société Envol Partenariats SA is a joint venture. This issue warrants further investigation. 5. This loan is not included in the SAIS-CARI database of Chinese loan commitments that was released in 2020 and re-released in 2021.

Number of official sources

11

Number of total sources

18