EBRD eyes Africa for next wave of expansion

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is eyeing a new wave of expansion into sub-Saharan Africa and new parts of the Middle East in the coming years that could raise its lending by as much as a third.

The plan to move deeper into Africa could dovetail with going into more countries in the north of the continent, such as Algeria, or in the Middle East such as Iraq or Libya. The overall expansion could see its annual lending jump by almost a third from around €9.5 billion at the moment.

New countries of operation would have to be democracies, or at least committed to becoming a democracy, and they must also aim for the kind of market-based economies that the development bank has always focused its efforts on.