NIB provides credit to health care sector in China

This is NIB’s first sectorially specific lending programme to China. Both Nordic suppliers and the Chinese Ministry of Finance have voiced a demand for a special credit facility for this sector. China has extensive plans for developing its health sector, above all in the poorer areas of the country.

The signing of the lending programme for the health care sector is expected to take place in November 2001, which means that NIB will then enable the funding of projects in China totalling USD 116 million. Lending amounts are usually between USD 2 and 5 million per project, and the loans normally have a tenor of about 10 years.

Longstanding co-operation exists between NIB and the Chinese Ministry of Finance. The first lending programme was signed in 1990, and the eighth general lending programme, for USD
60 million, was signed in June 2001. The previous lending programmes have financed projects in such sectors as food manufacturing, papermaking, energy production, telecommunications and health care.