The Export-Import Bank of Korea (www.koreaexim.bo.kr Chairman Lee Duk-Hoon, “Korea Eximbank”) announced on May 23 that it will extend USD 100 million in EDCF loan to Ethiopia to fund the country’s Modjo-Hawassa Expressway Project.

* The Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) was established by the Korean government in 1987 to promote economic exchanges with the developing world and to assist developing countries in achieving industrialization and economic stability through the provision of long-term, low-interest credit. Korea Eximbank currently manages the fund as its trustee.

Executive Director Yim Seong-hyeog of Korea Eximbank’s EDCF Operations Group met with Ethiopian Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed and signed the loan agreement for the project on May 22 while he was visiting Rwanda's capital Kigali to attend the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s annual meeting.

The "Etiophia Modjo-Hawassa Expressway Project" aims at building a 210-kilometer four-lane expressway connecting Modjo, a town located 70 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, and Hawassa, located southwest of the country. EDCF plans to co-finance the project with the AfDB to construct the 93km Modjo-Zeway section.

To overcome the disadvantages of a land-locked country, Ethiopia is seeking to expand its logistics infrastructure by connecting its roads with the ports and roads of neighboring countries such as Kenya.

Once completed, the project will be connecting the roads from Ethiopia to Kenya's Mombasa port, a traffic hub of Eastern Africa, as part of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Addis Ababa Road Corridor Project*. As a result, the movement of goods between the two neighboring countries is expected to greatly facilitated.

* The ‘Mombasa-Nairobi-Addis Ababa Road Corridor Project’ is a project led by the AfDB to construct a connecting road extending 1,004 km between Kenya and Ethiopia. The AfDB has lent USD 750 million of the total project cost of USD 850 million to the Kenyan and Ethiopian governments over the three stages of the project implemented thus far.

After the signing ceremony, Executive Director Yim remarked, "I am very pleased to see EDCF supporting the highest-priority project in the five-year development plan of Ethiopia, a long-standing ally that came to our defense during the Korean War.”