ComBank loans Rs 1.5 b to RDA

Commercial Bank became the first bank in Sri Lanka to support national development initiatives with concessionary long-term lending from its Investment Fund Account (IFA) set up in accordance with a proposal by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2011 budget.

The Bank, will provide a loan of Rs 1.5 billion to the Road Development Authority (RDA) payable over 14 1/2 years in the first ever disbursement from the IFA scheme proposed in the National Budget of November last year.

The funds are to be used in a two and a half year project to rehabilitate and improve a 21.5 km stretch of the A6 highway between Dambulla and Habarana, under the government's infrastructure development programme, the Bank said.

International Construction Consortium (Pvt) Ltd (ICC), is the designated contractor who is also a key client of the Bank.

As envisaged by the IFA scheme, an agreement covering this loan was entered into on Tuesday, August 30, by the Commercial Bank and the Road Development Authority.

The loan will be disbursed in stages as the project progresses and will be the first of several to be disbursed from the Commercial Bank's IFA for projects designated to be accommodated under the Fund.

Commercial Bank Managing Director Amitha Gooneratne said: "We are proud to be the first bank to respond to the government's proposal to ensure that tax savings are used efficiently and productively in the national economy at a stage of accelerated development.

It is a tribute to the professionals in our team that we have progressed rapidly to the formalization of the industry's first IFA loan agreement."