Egyptian companies will be among the beneficiaries of USD 500 mn in covid-19 recovery funding from Apicorp: The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp) has announced a USD 500 mn funding package to help its clients in the energy sector cover shortfalls caused by the covid-19 pandemic and the collapse in oil prices, the multilateral development bank said in a statement (pdf). The funds “will be deployed to support sustainable impact-driven projects … within the areas of utilities, renewables, petrochemicals, amongst other energy sub-sectors,” the statement said. It will come in addition to the USD 2 bn allocated to the sector by the lender each year, CEO Ahmed Ali Attiga said in an interview.

Egypt in focus: Egypt is among a list of “worst hit” countries named by Attiga that are destined to receive the bulk of the funding. “It is a covid-19 recovery intervention which will concentrate on the worst hit sectors and countries like Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Egypt and other countries in the region,” he said. Apicorp has investments of more than USD 210 mn in Egypt and over the past five years has provided financing of more than USD 530 mn to energy projects in the country, an Apicorp official told us.

Capital increase gives lender more room for manoeuvre: Apicorp shareholders last week gave the go-ahead for a substantial capital increase to support its investments in the sector. The lender now has USD 8.5 bn in callable capital, up from USD 1 bn. Authorized capital has risen to USD 20 bn and subscribed capital to USD 10 bn.