Algeria’s central bank issued a stimulus package including ability for retail lenders to defer loan payments for firms, which have been financially affected by the coronavirus crisis. Banks will continue to finance customers benefiting from loan payments deferrals, while reducing their minimum liquidity requirement to raise funding levels.
The United Arab Emirates' central bank announced new measures to guarantee liquidity in the banking system in the face of the new coronavirus outbreak, boosting its stimulus to a total of $70 billion from a previously announced $27 billion package. It halved banks' reserve requirements for demand deposits to 7% from 14%, which will inject about 61 billion dirhams of liquidity to support banks’ lending and liquidity management, among other measures announced.
In a statement, Bank of Uganda (BoU) governor said that “Given the deterioration in macroeconomic conditions and in order to ensure adequate access to credit and the normal functioning of financial markets, BoU has decided to ease monetary policy".
Kuwait's central bank (CBK) announced a stimulus package that aims at reducing liquidity and capital adequacy requirements for banks, and cutting risk weighting for SMEs from 75% to 25%. It also raised the maximum lending limit to 100% from 90% and increased the maximum financing for residential real estate developments to the value of the property or the cost of development.
The over-subscribed transaction, which attracted $4.6 billion of interest in the book and raised an exceptional $3 billion, was launched to alleviate the impact of Covid-19 on Africa’s economies and livelihoods. The listing marks an important milestone as the bank launches its first bond on London Stock Exchange.
Morocco has started to draw on a $3-billion Precautionary and Liquidity credit Line from the International Monetary Fund to offset a contraction of its economy because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Central bank said that the five-year loan has a grace period of three years and would be used mainly to finance the balance of payments and will not impact public debt as well as maintain the exchange reserves at an adequate level.
The partnership aims to raise an initial US$ 150 million for immediate needs to prevent transmission and up to US$ 400 million to support sustainable medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic by pooling the resources required for the procurement of medical supplies and commodities
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved an emergency loan of $745 million to finance a major part of Tunisia's announced assistance plan for the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan includes increasing health care spending, strengthening social safety nets and supporting SMEs. It should be noted that the country's economy is expected to contract by 4.3% in 2020 because of Covid-19.
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has a new $10 billion COVID-19 response plan to assist member states in fighting the pandemic. The funds, which will be available to African governments and institutions, is split into three parts. USD 5.5 Bn of it will go to the sovereign operations of the AfDB countries.
The COVID-19 Basket Fund will be facilitated and implemented by the UN system in Nigeria, through a Project Management Board comprising representatives of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 Response, relevant Government agencies, contributing donors and the UN system.
Parliament has approved a financial agreement that enables government to access US$35 million as Special Drawing Rights from the International Development Association (IDA) to fight the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. The money is to finance the Ghana COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response with US$21.5 million expected to be expended on case detection, confirmation, contact tracing, recording and reporting as component one.
The project will provide emergency funding for medical diagnostic services, surveillance and response, capacity building, quarantine, isolation and treatment centers, medical waste disposal, risk communications and community engagement as well as for strengthening of the country’s capacity to provide safe blood services.
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While demonstrating a notable responsiveness, each of these countries has acted swiftly to stem the opportunities for contagion, and has put in place substantial resources to support the national economy.
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