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24 October 2023 Ethiopia issues a Directive to regulate the opening and operations of offshore foreign-exchange accounts
The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) enacted Directive No. FXD/86/2023 (the Directive), which became effective on 8 September 2023. The Directive provides guidelines for offshore account operations for Strategic Foreign Direct Investment Projects in Ethiopia. The Directive is intended to attract strategic investors across multiple sectors to provide much-needed public goods (i.e., goods a government provides to its citizens), generate new foreign-exchange inflows, and create a preferential and flexible environment in certain limited cases for (i) the opening of offshore accounts, (ii) currency convertibility guarantees and (iii) modified debt-to-equity ratios in the case of strategic foreign investors. The following projects are eligible to operate an offshore account to deposit the proceeds from their equity and loan financing sources as per the NBE Directive:
The debt-to-equity ratio may not exceed 80:20 of the foreign capital. However, the NBE board may give special approval if it finds a ratio acceptable. After the project owner has exhausted all means of purchasing foreign exchange from banks, the foreign currency convertibility applies at the prevailing official rate on Strategic PPP energy and mining sector projects for the following purposes: The NBE mandates that the strategic FDI project owner provide financial statements on a quarterly basis, clearly showing the inflows and outflows of the offshore account as well as the annual projections of expected foreign exchange inflows and outflows for monitoring purposes. Relevant provisions of the External Loan and Supplier's Credit Directive No. FXD/82/2022 (as amended) will apply for matters not covered in this directive. The Directive is expected to make it easier for eligible projects to invest in Ethiopia and to repatriate their income in foreign currency.
Document ID: 2023-1766 | |