The Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) is set to approve a 684 million birr loan request from Dutch Velocity Dairy plc a 
company engaged in the making of milk and milk products. The loan will be the largest loan to the dairy sector in the bank’s history.
The loan request from the project was fast tracked as part of the bank’s plan to expedite loan requests said Tadesse Hatiya, Vice President of Credit Services with the DBE.
The bank was able to make the necessary evaluation and come to a decision within 38 days which is an improvement on the six months it used to take to process such requests in the past explained Tadesse.
The Bank hopes to reduce the number of days needed to evaluate a loan request to 32 in the coming years. DBE is making a break away from the previous routine of six months to process loans and is employing effective and efficient practices for handling loan requests, approval and disbursement said Tadese.It is to be remembered that similar loans were given to two Turkish firms, Sahinler Ethiopia Textile Investment plc and Saygin B.M Technology Group LLC. Sahinler received 618 birr to facilitate its textile investment while Saygin received the largest loan from the DBE to date, 1.42 million for the construction of a cable manufacturing plant.
These loans are a part of the Development Bank’s efforts to promote national development by providing financial and technical support to projects in what have been deemed priority sector by the development goals.
Source: Capital
