By Sylvia Juuko

EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has approved the new Apex credit, amounting euros 30m, European Union (EU) officials have said.

EU’s head of economic, trade and social sectors, Tom Vens, said recently, that the credit is aimed at promoting small and medium-sized private sector projects.

Vens was addressing journalists during a workshop organised by the EU at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

A separate statement issued by the EU on November 22 said Uganda and the EIB recently signed the finance contract establishing the Apex IV global loan in October 2004 in Kampala and Luxembourg.

“It is aimed at promoting small and medium-sized private sector investment projects through the provision of long-term funds to selected commercial and development banks as intermediaries,” said the statement.

The new finance operation amounting euros 30m is funded from risk capital resources under the fourth Lome Convention.
The loans to the private sector shall have a minimum term of five years, including at least a six-month grace period.

The EU said the maximum funding for individual investment projects is euros 2m.

EIB’s lending to Uganda, is in accordance with the country’s minimum grant element requirements for new borrowings.
The credit has a 15-year tenure, of which five years is grace period and carries an interest rate of just 1% per annum.