The Ministry of Finance and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed an agreement for the provision of a €170 million facility for the establishment of a new national bank, the Development Bank Ghana (DBG).
The facility is the largest provided by the EIB for the establishment of a development bank in Africa and other projects on the continent.
DBG is an integral feature of the GH¢100 billion Ghana Cares ‘Obaatampa’ Project, which is seeing to the revitalization of the Ghanaian economy following the onset of COVID-19.
The agreement was reached on Wednesday when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo met the President of the EIB, Dr. Werner Hoyer, as part of his official visit to Belgium.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, President Akufo-Addo said that DBG was going “to play a very important part in the rapid economic transformation of Ghana, following the onset of COVID-19.
“We want to restructure the economy, and move it from being a mere producer and exporter of raw materials, to one that places much greater emphasis on value addition activities. We see this Bank as one that will play a pivotal role in this”.
The President said the design and operation of the Bank, “which has been on the drawing board for the last two years”, will satisfy the highest standards, scrutiny and best practices of Development Banks across the world.