France provides $200 mln loan to Philippines

The French government has provided a 200-million-dollar loan to the Philippines for the improvement of its local government units (LGUs), the French Embassy said in a statement on Tuesday.

Co-financed by the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) and Asian Development Bank (ADB), the local government financial and budget reform program, subprogram 2 (LGFBR-2) aims to contribute to improved efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of basic public services to residents by increasing fiscal resources and financing options for LGUs, the French embassy said.

It also hopes to continue and deepen the government's efforts in enabling the LGUs enhance its capacities to plan and budget for the general welfare for their constituent communities in a transparent and accountable way.

"The program focuses on the areas of intergovernmental fiscal relations; fiscal management, planning and public expenditure management; performance measurement and service delivery in credit financing; and local own sources revenues," the embassy said.

Terms of the loan include a maturity of 20 years inclusive of five years grace period, an interest floating rate based on six- month Euro Interbank Offer Rate (EURIBOR) with a margin of 1.1 percent and a commitment charge of 0.15percent per annum. Proceeds of the program will be used for budgetary support.

Source: Xinhua