IsDB makes important strides
Al-Jazeera
After five sessions debating a lot about the projects presented, in the last session IsDB finally managed to approve several projects, altogether were four. Since one of them was by consensus, the second of this committee. The IsDB invested in these projects 655 millions dollars.
The first approved project was one to rebuild of the refinery of Bayji that is going to produce 70.000 barrels per day. Iraq’s biggest and most important refinery was destroyed by ISIS and the project will rebuild it, generating jobs and moving Iraq’s economy again. At the same time, it is a good investment for the countries who are supporting it. IsDB invested 119 million dollars and the total costs of the project was 2 billion dollars.
The another one was a project that aims to providing a railroad connecting two main regions in Libya — Marita and Sabah — facilitating the flow of mineral products to other countries. It is a project that facilitates the exportation of important material to the industry of many countries in the MENA region. The total costs is US$ 1.125.000.000,00.
After that, UAE presented their project of a loan to Iraq. It’a a reconstruction of damaged railroads in Iraq and a construction of a railroad between Kuwait City (Kuwait), Umm Qasr (Iraq), Mosul (Iraq) and Aleppo (Syria). The benefit is that the railroad’s profit will be distributed among the sponsor countries proportionally to their investment during the grace period. After that, the profit will be managed by Iraq. The total costs is US$ 1.700.000,00 of these 500 million comes from IsDB.
For the last one, Lebanon was the country manager to the construction of health, educational and housing conditions for the wellbeing and return of refugees to Syrian government. The ongoing conflict in Syria has forced many Palestine and Syrian refugees from that country to flee to Lebanon, in search of safety. The refugee camps suffer from serious problems, including poverty, overcrowding, unemployment, poor housing conditions and lack of infrastructure. So the project consists in build two schools and two health in three syrian refugee camps, aiming at a basic level of life quality to the refugees, so that they can go back to their country. IsDB lent 5 million dollars of the total of 36 million dollars.
