{"id":42252,"date":"2013-07-18T09:35:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T07:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=42252"},"modified":"2013-07-18T09:46:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T07:46:49","slug":"cash-boost-for-sa-ict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/42252\/cash-boost-for-sa-ict\/","title":{"rendered":"Cash boost for SA ICT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of the EU-South Africa Summit to take place on Thursday (18 July) in Pretoria, the <a title=\"European Union\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/3087-EU-European-Union\">European Union<\/a> has approved a \u20ac100 million (R1.291 billion) programme to support infrastructure development in the country and region as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>The investment would come through a grant-loan blending mechanism, and\u00a0is expected to contribute to increased infrastructure investments in transportation and logistics, energy, water\/environment, information, communication and technology (ICT) and social infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The programme would leverage investments from development finance institutions in areas identified by the country itself which were in deep need of financing.<\/p>\n<p>Grants will support a range of activities, including technical assistance for the preparation, management and implementation of projects, as well as direct grants to co-finance capital expenditure of infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n<p>EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs, said: \u201cImproving infrastructure is key to the development of any country. South Africa is currently held back by its infrastructure, which restricts people\u2019s access to health, education and job opportunities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By taking an innovative approach, our new support programme will help to significantly boost trade in the region and get the country on the road to further growth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The funding is part of the European Union&#8217;s support programme for South Africa (2007-2013), with its overall objective of reducing poverty and inequality, and amounts to \u20ac980 million (R12.652 billion).<\/p>\n<p>The Infrastructure Investment Programme for South Africa will involve close cooperation between the Development Bank of Southern Africa and European development finance institutions; namely, the European Investment Bank (EIB), Kreditanstalt f\u00fcr Wiederaufbau (KfW) and Agence Fran\u00e7aise de D\u00e9veloppement (AFD).<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on investment in South Africa<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"MTN invests in $75 million tech fund\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/42005\/mtn-invests-in-75-million-tech-fund\/\"><strong>MTN invests in $75 million tech fund<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Carrim to introduce urgent measures in SA ICT\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/41738\/carrim-to-introduce-urgent-measures-in-sa-ict\/\"><strong>Carrim to introduce urgent measures in SA ICT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EU has pledged to support infrastructure development in South Africa and the region with a \u20ac100 million (R1.29 billion) programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1489,26],"class_list":["post-42252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-european-union","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42252"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42261,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42252\/revisions\/42261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}