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The African Development Bank (AfDB) has signed an agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Japanese international development agency, for a $300 million facility. According to a statement released today, AfDB said the agreement was signed under the Enhanced Private Sector Assistance for Africa (EPSA), a joint initiative of the bank and JICA.

EPSA has three components, which are: Accelerated Co-financing Facility for Africa (ACFA); Non-sovereign Loan (NSL); and Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA). The $300 million loan was granted under the NSL window, which is based on concessional terms for financing the bank’s private sector operations.

The agreement was signed at the AfDB headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Participants at the signing ceremony were Charles Boamah, AfDB’s Senior Vice President; Yukuo Murata, Acting Ambassador of Japan to Côte d’Ivoire; Momo Morioka, representative of JICA in Côte d’Ivoire; among others.

Boamah thanked the government of Japan and JICA for their continuous support to the AfDB and the African continent under the EPSA initiative. The total private sector assistance under the initiative has now reached $1.5 billion. The latest loan is the seventh under the EPSA since 2007.

“Japan is a very strategic partner of the AfDB and a major trading partner for Africa,” said Charles Boamah. “Your support in promoting private sector growth, quality infrastructure and co-financing operations, has allowed the Bank to grow its private sector portfolio ten-fold. Under the new High 5 priorities, all of which involve the private sector, the loan will accelerate expansion of our private sector portfolio even further.”

During the 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which held in August 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya, a target of $3 billion financing was announced to be achieved as part of the third phase of the EPSA, which covers 2017-2019.

The ACFA component of the EPSA is a sovereign co-financing arrangement between AfDB and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, while FAPA is a trust fund for technical assistance and capacity building for the bank’s public and private sector clients.