SERV has insured a buyer credit of EUR 152.6 million to finance a project to build nine state-of-the-art vocational training centres across Ghana. The project will involve the construction and outfitting of the centres, and the design of 33 curriculums across eleven different subjects. The hope is that this educational initiative will contribute to improving young people’s vocational knowledge and their level of qualification. Furthermore, this project reiterates the government of Ghana’s commitment to upgrade the education infrastructure and improve employability. The objective is to sustainably boost Ghana’s socioeconomic growth and national development over the long term.
The project’s contractor is the general contractor Planet One Euro Ventures AG (Planet One), which operates at an international level. To qualify for insurance with SERV, Planet One has enlisted around 20 Swiss subcontractors for this project and has founded a subsidiary in Switzerland and this project is not intended to be the last of its kind: “We are thankful to SERV for their quick turnaround and also to handhold us through the entire process. We also look forward to carrying out other transactions with SERV’s support,” stated Deepak Balaji, Director of the Planet One Group.
The project is being financed by ING and BNP Paribas as a social loan in alignment with the Social Loan Principles of the Loan Market’s Association’s (LMA) over a period of 13 years, with ING acting as facility agent, SERV agent and coordinator. “We’re very proud to be supporting this project, which will have a positive and wide social impact. It’s long-lasting positive effect on Ghana’s economy is motivating us to seek further transactions of this kind,” says Ron Hansen, Managing Director at ING Structured Export Finance. Because SERV has the highest possible credit rating (AAA), its insurance makes the overall financing very attractive for the Ghanaian State, and the general contractor is working with reliable Swiss SMEs that provide superior products and services.
