Nigeria's cabinet approves $99 mln Japanese agency loan

Nigeria's cabinet approved a 15-billion-yen ($99.15 million)concessionary loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to support farming in Africa's largest economy, Finance Minister Wale Edun said in Monday.

Edun told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Abuja, the capital, that the JICA loan would fetch an interest rate of 1% for 30 years with a 10-year moratorium. "It's the kind of bilateral support that doesn't put strain on Nigeria financially," Edun said.

Nigeria is seeking to lower its borrowing costs this year as part of plans to cut the budget deficit to roughly 3.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, from 6.1% last year. Africa's most populous nation has been spending the bulk of its revenue on debt service due to low oil receipts and taxes, prompting the cabinet to approve a 2 trillion naira limit last November for use to refinance expensive government debt and save on debt servicing cost. (Writing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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