$30 million Loan For Presidential House

.... $30 million for rural electrification
New Delhi, Aug 28 -- The Export and Import (Exim) Bank of India has extended a loan of USD 60 million to Ghana for building a presidential house (Peduasi Lodge or Flagstaff House) costing USD 30 million and another USD 30 million is for rural electrification.

Overall, the premier bank for export and import financing, provided USD 150 million loan to Ghana and three other African nations for financing imports of goods and services from India.

"Exim Bank has extended four Lines of Credits (LoCs) to Ghana, Congo, Ivory Coast and Mali worth about USD 150 million (about Rs 645 crore) for importing goods and services from India," a senior Exim Bank official told PTI.

It has provided a credit line of USD 27 million to Mali for carrying out rural electrification programme and financing export of agricultural machinery and tractors from India to the African nation.

"The USD 33.5 million loan to Congo is for setting up a cement plant, export of buses and for rehabilitation of manganese mining activities", the official said.

The loan to Congo includes USD 13 million for setting up a cement plant, USD 12.5 million for export of 500 buses and USD 8 million for manganese and diamond mining activities.

The loan to Ivory Coast is USD 26.8 million for agricultural programmes and assisting urban transport system under which the country would import buses from India.

The loans were under the 'India Development Initiative' of the government of India which supports exports to many developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

India is focussing on expanding its trade ties with African nations in order to create a bigger market for Indian goods and services.