S.African DBSA's lending to rise 15 pct to $1.5 bln

By George Obulutsa

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) expects its lending to jump to $1.5 billion in its April-March financial year from $1.3 billion previously, a senior executive said on Thursday.

DBSA provides infrastructure funds for projects in sectors like power, telecommunications, energy and health in member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) trade bloc.

"We expect to do roughly another $1.5 billion of lending in this current financial year," Admassu Tadesse, DBSA's executive vice president of the international division, told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of business executives and government officials.

Tadesse said projects the bank had helped fund include a $100 million hospital in Lesotho to which the government and a private operator also contributed. It had also provided money to Zambian and Mozambican electric utilities.

He said the financial crisis had made the price of bonds rise, even for AAA-rated organisations like the World Bank, and this has affected DBSA too. However, he said the bank was still well placed to raise lending.

"But we are still very liquid. We have got lots of money that is available for financing infrastructure directly," he said.

In the past three years DBSA had approved $160 million for projects in Tanzania, with telecoms and transport taking up two thirds of the money, Tadesse said, adding all the funds had been disbursed.

He said projects in industries like agriculture and agro processing were much slower at taking up their allotment.