In a release published on May 22, 2016, on its website, the African Development Bank (AfDB) revealed that its board approved on May 18, 2016, a €52.04 million loan to the government of Congo Republic. The loan will serve to finance the installation of fiber optic across the country under the Central Africa Backbone (CAB) project. Launched in 2007, the CAB intends to connect every nation from Central Africa to fiber optic, and to interconnect these countries.

Director of AfDB’s ICT and transport department, Amadou Oumarou, has said regarding the installation of fiber optic through Congo that the project would “participate to the diversification of the country’s economy. The emergence of ICT and online services will result in a positive dynamic in other sectors such as agriculture, education, health and trade”. His colleague, Samatar Omar Eimi, ICT Engineer at AfDB and team leader of the CAB Congo project, added that installing the fiber optic in the country “will bring some of the country’s regions, rural areas mostly, out of the seclusion from which they have been suffering so far, while reinforcing regional integration through the creation of international terrestrial connections with neighboring countries, namely Cameroon and the Central African Republic”.

The CAB Congo project has been estimated at €66.56 million. AfDB lent the country €52.04 million for the project and the Republic of Congo is to provide the remaining €14,520,000.