The Nigerian Senate has announced its approval of a loan valued at €995 million from the Brazilian Development Bank and Deutsche Bank for the development of Nigeria’s agriculture value chain.
This was disclosed by the federal government on Wednesday evening after the Senate approved the loan, stating that the Green Imperative Scheme would train 100,000 new extension workers, create about 5 million jobs, and positively impact over 35 million Nigerians in a 5-10 year period.
The federal government said, “Today, the Nigerian Senate, approved the President’s request for approval of €995 million in loans from the Export-Import Bank of Brazil (BNDES) & Deutsche Bank of Germany (and guaranteed by the Islamic Development Bank) for the Green Imperative Agricultural Mechanisation program.
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The Loan will fund 632 privately-operated primary production (mechanisation) service centres and 142 Agro-processing (value addition) service centres across Nigeria’s 774 LGAs, and reactivate 6 privately-owned partially-operational or moribund tractor assembly plants nationwide.”
The federal government added that the service centres built with the loans would be used to cover crop and livestock commodities prioritized towards food security and trade.
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What you should know
Nairametrics reported in February 2021 that the Federal Government had signed a fresh $1.2 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Development Bank of Brazil for agriculture modernization in Nigeria.
The credit facility is called “the Green Imperative Project (GIP)” and will last for a period of 15 years.