Proparco Provides US$22mn for Digicel GSM Rollout

Caribbean mobile holding company Digicel group has secured US$22mn in financing from French international funding agency Proparco to be put towards Digicel's startup operations in Haiti, Digicel said in a statement.

Proparco, the private sector financing arm of France's Development Assistance Agency (AFD), has thus become the principal creditor in a project with a total of US$64mn in multilateral financing. The remaining US$42mn is divided between the World Bank's IFC unit, Dutch agency FMO, Canada's EDC, the Bank of Nova Scotia and Citibank.

The US$22mn from Proparco includes US$10mn from European Financing Partners (EFP), which represents several European financial development institutions.

Digicel is rolling out a GSM network in Haiti, where mobile penetration was below 6% before the group began operations on May 3.

BNAmericas.com"

Posted to the site on 3rd July 2006