Togo to benefit from $155 million regional project to boost financing of affordable housing

Investments

Monday, 24 September 2018 12:04

Togo to benefit from $155 million regional project to boost financing of affordable housing

(Togo First) - Last Friday, WAEMU’s Regional Fund for Mortgage Refinancing (CRRH-UEMOA), its commission, the West African Development Bank (BOAD) and the World Bank launched the World Bank/WAEMU regional project to promote financing of affordable housing within the WAEMU.

The launching ceremony which took place in Abidjan was chaired by Romuald Wadagni, Benin’s minister of economy and finance who is also the chairman of WAEMU’s ministers’ council.

The project which benefits from a $155 million funding, according to an official statement released by CRRH-UEMOA, aims to improve housing financing across WAEMU, especially for the people with low or irregular revenues.

It should also help cushion the shock resulting from the significant housing deficit in the region. Currently, the latter is estimated at 800,000 units per year, in a context where banks provide only around 15,000 new mortgage loans every year; that is a very small portion of what is needed. This situation should get worse considering forecasts which predict doubling of WAEMU’s population from 110 million to 220 million residents, in the next 20 years, with a great part of these living in cities.

Christian Agossa (photo), Managing Director CRRH-UEMOA, indicated that the project would enable the institution to raise concessional resources to better support low-income populations. “This project should facilitate the issuance of about 50,000 new mortgage loans, and also help raise more funds to finance housing and social housing via bonds issuances on the regional stock market and the extension of their maturities”.

In Togo, this issue is quite real and both the private and public sectors are actively engaged to overcome it. Their main goal is to provide each resident decent and affordable living conditions and if Togolese banks are able to secure a significant share of the new financing from the CRRH-UEMOA, the country’s housing sector should experience a true boom.

Séna Akoda

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REFORMS OVERVIEW

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At the fifteenth position, worldwide, and first in Africa, under the Starting a Business index of the 2020 Doing Business ranking, Togo sustains its reformative dynamics with more reforms….

ENFORCING CONTRACTS (more info)

Compared to some years ago when it was one of the lowest rankers under the Doing Business’ Enforcing Contracts indicator, Togo, leveraging many efforts to improve its business climate, was able to jump significantly on the index in the recent years... .

CONTRACT EXECUTION (more info)

Creation of special chambers of commerce for small debts • Creation of chambers of commerce at the Court of Appeal • Civil and commercial cases now handled by distinct clerks • Establishment of commercial courts in Lomé and Kara • Lawyers and bailiffs now have access to the FORSETI COMMERCIAL platform • A maximum period of 100 days was fixed to settle a commercial dispute .

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In comparison to previous years,Togo has significantly improved its ranking under the“Trading across borders” indicator by adopting multiple reforms that focus mainly on the digitization and reduction in delays, for import and export procedures related to import and export.

In comparison to previous years, Togo has significantly improved its ranking on the “Trading across borders” index by adopting multiple reforms that focus mainly on the digitalization and reduction in delays, for import and export procedures related to import and export.

CONSTRUCTION PERMIT (more info)

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