(Ecofin Agency) - The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) announced that on February 5, 2019, it granted a $154 million loan to Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG).

The loan agreement was signed in Tunis by the ITFC executive director Hani Salem Sonbol, and Moncef Harrabi, STEG’s CEO in the presence of Tunisia’s minister of development, investment and international cooperation Zied Laâdhari.

It will be used to balance STEG’s books that degraded recently due to the decline in oil prices on the international market and the depreciation of the local currency against the USD and the Euro. The loan will also help pay for natural gas imported from Algeria.

This loan falls within the framework of the promise made by the Islamic Development Bank’s ITFC head office, during its 43^rd annual meeting (in April 2018 in Tunis) to provide $1.5 billion to Tunisia.