By Kenton X. Chance,
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept 2, CMC — The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) celebrated its 50th anniversary on Sunday night with its Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Faisal AlQahta, saying that the fund stands ready to help the Caribbean meet its developmental agenda, including responding to climate change.
The fund was established in 1974 by a royal decree and started operation in 1975. Since then it has provided over 800 loans to finance projects in 100 countries around the world, AlQahtani told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) ahead of a gala dinner here to mark the diamond anniversary.
“Let me take it from the last year only, SFD has signed about 40 loan agreements with 29 countries, and nine of those countries are Caribbean countries,” AlQahtani told CMC.
“So we take great pride in our contribution to small islands developing states, and we are expanding our operations exponentially in those countries from the feeling that we know that they are vulnerable to climate change,” he added.
(Details in Business section)
CMC/2024