Today, Deutsche Bank and SACE announced the close of a €57 million, 10-year lending facility in support of local food production in the Republic of Angola. This facility was guaranteed by SACE, the Italian Export Credit Agency (ECA), and Desenvolvimento de Angola (BDA).
The facility will be used to fund an export contract with the Italian company, Andreotti Impianti Spa, and Carrinho Empreendimentos SA, a local Angolan company for the supply of a fully automated soybean and sunflower crushing plant.
Located in Lobito, the plant will be the largest of its kind in Africa, with a throughput capacity of up to 4,000 tonnes of soybeans or 2,400 tonnes of sunflower seeds per day.
Construction of the soybean and sunflower crushing plant will take approximately two years and is expected to create around 300 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs related to soybean and sunflower planting.
This transaction is the first Individual Loan Agreement (ILA) finalised under the Framework Export Credit Agreement (FA) signed in May 2019 between Deutsche Bank, BDA and Angola’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) to fund private investment projects in the country.
The credit line, arranged by the bank’s Structured Trade & Export Finance (STEF) team for the Government of Angola, aims to finance agriculture, agri-industry, fishing and general industries with the aim to guarantee a greater supply of goods, services and employment, creating new opportunities for the population.
Andreotti Impianti managing director, Alberto Andreotti said, “We are very proud that Andreotti Impianti is part of one of the most ambitious industrial projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing the export of Italian technology and machinery in an extremely competitive market, where this innovative export finance agreement, arranged by Deutsche Bank and guaranteed by SACE, will help support economic development in Angola.”
Deutsche Bank global head of structured trade export finance, Werner Schmidt said, “With Deutsche Bank’s decades of experience of financing development projects in Africa, we are proud to support this project. This production facility supports the local economic transition from reliance on commodities production, to creating higher value-add food processing, thereby reducing food imports and enabling local economic activity to rise up the value-chain.”
SACE chief business officer, Bernardo Attolico added, “Made in Italy technology and know-how land once again in Angola with this operation that sees SACE alongside Andreotti and with an established partner like Deutsche Bank. We are one of the most active export credit agencies in Africa and this operation illustrates how SACE successfully supports Italian companies even in very complex projects.”
Patrícia D’Almeida, CEO of BDA, said, “We are very proud of the implementation of this operation. This plant is a valuable contribution to Angola’s ongoing process of economic diversification. We hope that more of this kind of initiative will be implemented.”
