Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Vice President Sir Danny Alexander and CEO of Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad signed an agreement for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to contribute USD10 million to AIIB’s Special Fund Window for Less Developed Members (SFW) on September 26, 2023. The SFW is a facility to make AIIB loans more affordable for its less developed members by providing interest rate buy-down.
“Serving our less developed members is a key priority for AIIB,” said Alexander. “The operationalization of the Special Fund Window constitutes a critical milestone in AIIB’s efforts for making our financing more affordable to its less developed members. We are grateful to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for being the first contributor to the SFW and look forward to welcoming other donors joining this Fund.”
Al-Marshad said, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appreciates AIIB’s effort in assisting less developed members to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and to help narrow their financing gap for projects in infrastructure and other productive sectors. We look forward to further strengthening our strategic partnership with AIIB.”
The SFW was approved by the AIIB Board of Directors on March 22, 2022. It will provide interest rate buy down to eligible sovereign-backed financing projects that are aligned with AIIB Corporate Strategy and identified according to AIIB’s regular rigorous investment process.
The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) was established as a governmental institution to provide support in the form of soft loans to finance development projects in developing countries. As a member of the international development community, SFD has been supporting least-developed countries in financing impactful and critical projects and programs.
