WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 1998—The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has signed an agreement to provide a loan of US$5 million to El Zay, a Jordanian textile company, specializing in the manufacture of high quality men’s suits.
The project consists of an expansion program to diversify El-Zay’s product line by manufacturing men’s outerwear and a financial restructuring program. El-Zay has already benefitted from Italian/IFC Technical Assistance Trust Fund support in the preparation of its expansion and diversification.
El-Zay has a strategic technical know-how and sales agreement with Gruppo GFT, a top-ranking European menswear company, which manufactures and markets high quality ready-to-wear suits with over 30 operating subsidiaries in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and the Far East.
Mr. André Hovaguimian, Director of IFC’s Central Asia, Middle East, and North Africa Department, said that IFC was very pleased to make its first investment in the Jordanian textile industry, a non-traditional export sector for the country, and that the project would benefit from Jordan’s comparative advantages in human resources, location, and trade agreements with Europe.
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, is the world’s largest multilateral source of equity and loan financing for private sector projects in developing countries. To date, IFC has approved about US$204 million in financing, including US$70 million for the account of participants and $114 million for its own account, for 11 projects in Jordan.
