WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 31 -- The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has signed an agreement to provide Indo-Jordan Chemicals Company Limited with $30 million in loan financing for a greenfield phosphoric acid project at Eshidiya in Jordan. IFC played a pivotal role in helping to structure the venture and in assisting with the mobilization of $100 million of loans required to finance this $170 million project. Other providers of loan finance will be a consortium of French commercial banks led by Credit Commercial de France and co-led managed by Banque National de Paris under a COFACE buyer's credit. The Dutch development bank, FMO, and local Jordanian banks, including Arab Bank plc, will also be involved. Indo-Jordan Chemicals Company Limited is a joint venture between Jordan Phosphate Mines Company Limited, one of the largest phosphate producers who will supply the rock required to produce phosphoric acid, and Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Limited, a major Indian fertilizer producer, who
will buy the phosphoric acid to manufacture phosphate fertilizers. The third partner will be The Arab Investment Company, a regional financial investment company. The plant will produce 220,000 tons per year of phosphoric acid and will be built in accordance with a turn-key contract with Krebs & Cie of France. The project will be commissioned in 1997. "This is an important collaboration between a producer and a consumer from two developing countries. It capitalizes upon Jordan's competitive advantage in supplying phosphates to meet India's huge demand for fertilizers," said Mr. Jean-Philippe Halphen, Director of IFC's Chemicals, Petrochemicals and Fertilizers Department. IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and is the largest multilateral source of equity and loan financing for private sector projects in developing countries.
