JEDDAH, 9 January — The Islamic Development Bank yesterday approved $507 million in favor of its member countries and Muslim communities in non-member states toward financing development projects, trade operations and technical assistance operations.
The funds were approved by the IDB board of executive directors who met over the past two days in Jeddah under the bank's President, Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, the bank said in a statement.
Dr. Ali said of the new provisions, an amount of $48 million has been approved for financing development projects within the bank's efforts to achieve economic and social development in its member countries and $1.3 million for education projects in favor of Muslim communities in Europe and Africa.
The board meeting in its 197th session took note of earlier approvals by its president for $459 million toward import trade financing and export financing under the IDB's Import Trade Financing Operations and Export Financing Scheme, technical assistance and Syndicated Murabaha Operations from the bank's Unit Investment Fund. These operations were approved by the President between the last and current session of the board of executive directors.
Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Egypt and Djibouti received funds for development projects. Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Nigeria, Nepal and Eritrea received special assistance for the construction of Islamic schools and other education projects. Countries benefiting from the technical assistance program included Niger, Mauritania and Djibouti while companies from Egypt and Pakistan benefited from syndicated murabaha operations involving the purchase of refined oil products and raw material.
