The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a quick disbursing supplementary loan to help Mali stabilise its economic environment. The ADF loan is a balance of payments support for use in financing goods and services imports originating exclusively from ADB Group member countries.
Amounting to 8.6mn units of account (US$12.63mn), the loan will facilitate the implementation of additional reform measures under the third Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP III) and the new Cotton Sector Action Plan.
Over the 2002-03 period, the reforms implemented under SAP III mostly focused on the rehabilitation of the cotton sector and the financial restructuring of the Malian Textile Development Company (Compagnie malienne de developpement des textiles – CMDT), and were conducted to confront the 1999-2000 economic crisis in Mali following the slump in cotton production in the wake of falling prices.
SAP III contributed to government divestiture by refocusing CMDT’s operations around cotton and maintaining the competitiveness of the sector and network. Within that programme context, the government pursued liberalisation measures in the key sectors (cotton, gold, cereals, agro-industry and services) and CMDT’s privatisation. Between 2001 and 2003, the economy once again grew by 6.7% as it did over the 1997-99 period. Thanks to that performance, the country reached the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative completion point in March 2003.
The bank group’s operations in Mali started in 1970. To date, total commitments stand at UA552.4mn, equivalent to US$811.4mn.