NBS gets World Bank's attention - 05/02/2010

World Bank President Robert Zoellick says a project his institution is implementing through a line of credit with Malawi's NBS Bank has become one of the outstanding small and medium scale financing projects on the continent. Addressing the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last weekend, Zoellick said the World Bank, through its private sector investment International Finance Corporation (IFC), made available a US$7 million (Kl billion) line of credit and enabled it to access a network of international banks to support the SME sector in Malawi.

"As a small bank in a small market, Malawi based NBS Bank was at a disadvantage in providing trade finance for SMEs," said Zoellick. He, however, said that with IFC support, NBS Bank was now able to support many small enterprises in Malawi and that one of its significant projects had been with a local fertiliser company. IFC supported the NBS Bank through its Global Trade Finance Programme (GTFP) which currently covers 27 countries and a total of US$789 million in approved trade lines, 80 percent of which is earmarked for SMEs. Zoellick said the GTFP was one of the facilities the World Bank has recently conceived to help developing countries manage the effects of the global financial crisis.

He said since the fury of the crisis hit the world in the middle of 2008, all units of the World Bank Group had committed US$88 billion to support member countries, describing this "as a break of all records". Zoellick said the International Development Association (IDA), which provides grants and no interest loans to developing countries like Malawi, last year committed US7.8 billion to sub-Saharan countries, which was an increase of 36 percent from the previous year. He said the bank created a new Global Food Crisis Response Programme which, he said, has already approved US$710 million for 21 African countries. The president said his bank has also tripled Support for safety net programmes such as school feeding, nutrition, social cash transfer and cash for world projects in partnership with the World Food Programme and other organisations.

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