A financing and programme agreement has been signed among the Economic Relations Division (ERD), the IDCOL (Infrastructure Development Company Limited) and the KfW of Germany for the implementation of a renewable energy programme. ERD Secretray Md Ismail Zabihullah, KfW Local Office Director Christoph Isenman and IDCOL Executive Director and chief executive officer (CEO) M Fouzul Kabir Khan signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations. Under this agreement, KfW will provide EUR16.5 million to the Bangladesh government as grant. The fund will be used by IDCOL for providing grants and refinancing facility to its 14 participating organisations for the installation of solar home systems (SHS) in the remote rural areas of the country. Initially, IDCOL had a target of financing 50,000 SHSs in five and half a year period (January 2003 to June 2008) with financial assistance from the World Bank (WB) and the Global Environment Facility. It has achieved its target in September 2005, three years ahead of the scheduled completion. Now IDCOL has revised the target of financing 190,000 SHSs by the year 2009 with additional assistance from the World Bank and the KfW. Notably, IDCOL, a fully government-owned company, has financed other infrastructure projects such as 450MW Meghnaghat Power Ltd, Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd, and arranged finance for 11.6 MW Shah Cement Power Ltd and DNS SatComm Satellite Earth Station Ltd. Currently, the company is arranging finance for two landports and processing loan for a cellular and a PSTN project.
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