France has offered a bouquet of credits, loan guarantees, and direct investment worth a total of 2.5 billion euros in a recently announced a “Choose Africa” initiative to develop African businesses. The initiative is a follow up to the commitments made by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier to help Africa’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).The announcement was made by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.”Choose Africa’ he said will provide African SMEs the much-needed access to finance. The total financing support of approximately 1.5 billion euros will cover credit lines and loan guarantees, and 1.0 billion in direct investment. The proposal is expected to support nearly 10,000 African companies via French development agency AFD and its private sector financing-arm, Proparco.
