RIYADH: The Saudi Fund For Development (SFD) has signed two new loan agreements with Sri Lanka. It will offer part financing for the $140-million road construction project in the island nation and another project for refurbishment of the Epilepsy Hospital in Colombo.

Both loan agreements were signed in Colombo last week by Youssef Al-Bassam, vice-chairman and managing director of SFD, and R.H.S. Samaratunge, secretary to the Treasury on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka.

The construction project is the A5 corridor — one of the major highways linking parts of the Central Province to Eastern Province geopolitical zones of the country which carries the bulk of the traffic between Batticaloa and Peradeniya via Badulla and to finance procurement of medical equipment for the ongoing hospital project.

Improvements to A5 road corridor from Badulla to Chenkaladi would enhance access to markets and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and integrate isolated segments of the rural population into the overall economy.

“This project is jointly financed by SFD and OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) where the total estimated cost of the project is $140 million.The Financing Agreement with SFD is to obtain $60 million for the project. The agreement with OFID was signed on June 26, 2015 to obtain another $60 million and the Sri Lankan government would provide the balance financing.”

The financing for hospital comes as an additional financing for procurement of equipment for the ongoing hospital project, where SFD has provided $20 million to construct fully-equipped state-of-the-art hospital for epilepsy patients. The 10-story hospital building consists of an operation theater, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), High Dependency Unit (HDU), 242-bed male and female wards, an auditorium for capacity building for island wide medical staff.

The additional financing of $12 million is mainly to procure all necessary equipment, including device ray CT, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine, physical therapy devices, medical furniture.