The new network, afrifibre, will be the first in Djibouti to combine high speed, secure communication and reliability, enabling users across education, government and business to transform their information systems and e-services.
Construction of the network will begin during July 2019 with operations in Djibouti foreseen from early 2020. Further upgrades of the network are planned to extend geographic coverage into the wider Eastern African region and beyond.
On 1 July 2019, at the Cape Verde Investment Forum hosted by the Government of Cape Verde (GoCV) on the island of Sal, iibGroup and the GoCV signed an MoU for cooperation on infrastructure development.
The MoU coincided with launch at the Forum of the Cape Verde Infrastructure Fund, a €250m vehicle to be established with iibGroup and GoCV as founding partners. The fund is aimed at upgrading, or building new, infrastructure principally in the transport, energy, water and communications sectors. It will be established in Luxembourg with the manager located in Lisbon. The first closing of the fund is foreseen in Q4 2019 at €50m and the final closing is expected in Q4 2020 at €250m, to be followed by a five-year investment period and ten-year overall fund life.
The International Investment Bank (Djibouti) S.A. announced a customer donation matching commitment to support the COVID-19 government support fund. iib customers donated DJF 10 million which was equally matched by the Bank.
On 16 June 2020, iib Djibouti represented by Mr Raj Dussoye, Chief Executive Officer of iib (Djibouti) donated the total amount of DJF 20 million to the COVID-19 fund in the presence of officers from the Ministry of the Budget (Ministère du Budget, Djibouti). The donation was broadcasted on the national television, Radio Television of Djibouti (RTD). The donation is in support of the government’s effort in fighting COVID-19.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance, in charge of Industry has created within the Partial Credit Guarantee Fund of Djibouti (FGPCD) a new product called Exceptional Depreciable Cash Credit. This new product aims to allow bank financing exceptional for the benefit of companies whose cash flow was negatively impacted by the Covid-19 health crisis.
As you are aware, Djibouti is currently facing a difficult situation due to COVID 19 and the President of the Republic has called for solidarity from one and all to combat this calamity.
The confinement has become a necessary evil to combat the Virus. While we, ordinary citizens, are confined in the security of our homes, we have some warriors on the front line who are fighting day and night against this virus. They are sacrificing their health and their security as well as that of their families for us. They include doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
But let us not forget the officers of the police and the military, who are working, all round the clock, to ensure that we respect the rules of confinement. They are also directly exposed. Many of those warriors are clients of iib Bank.
iibGroup, through iib Bank in Djibouti, has thought of being besides those warriors of the frontline. We were made aware that they were needing water coolers for and Parasols. We quickly procured them with the help of our friends Said del Waiss of HALT Group and Mr Gamil. I wish to thank them both for their invaluable help.
Today, I had the honour of donating to the National Police 50 water coolers and 50 Parasols which will be used at road blocks. This is a symbolic gesture from iib Group and we will be coming with other measures to be besides the people of Djibouti during these difficult times.
iibGroup and iib Bank in Djibouti remain fully committed to the development of Djibouti and remain united and in solidarity with the people of Djibouti.
I would like to thank my Team, Team iib, which put in lots of efforts for this project and other projects to come very soon, INCHA ALLAH.
iib is bringing its contributing stone………, and You?
On 7 July 2019 iibGroup secured a license for construction and operation of a diversified ICT Park in Djibouti. The leading facility at the Park will be a 1000-rack Tier III data centre, built in stages with operations starting in late 2020. The Park will include renewable energy infrastructure to support availability at Tier III level and will benefit from high-quality local and international fibre-optic connectivity, utilising iibGroup’s proprietary fibre optic network, afrifibre, as well as submarine cables operated by Djibouti Telecom.
The data centre will provide managed ICT infrastructure to local and regional public and private sector clients; it will host data and applications for use by clients as well as their customers; and will provide back-up and rapid recovery services to ensure business continuity for its clients.
In addition, the Park will provide ICT education and training facilities, software development services, hardware installation and maintenance services, ICT consulting services, business incubation services and conferencing facilities together with onsite accommodation for visitors.
The broad ICT ecosystem at the Park is expected to generate several hundred jobs on site, more than a third of these being highly skilled positions. Over time, a much larger impact can be expected on the wider economy, in the form of transfer of technology and build-up of technical capacity in the country, incubation of ICT-related start-ups, enhanced efficiency and productivity of the Park’s client community through access to improved ICT infrastructure and an uplift in Djibouti’s profile on the international stage as an enabled destination for international business.
Construction of the Data Centre is foreseen from July 2019 with operations beginning in late 2020 at completion of a first phase with 200 racks. In subsequent months the data centre will continue to expand in parallel with implementation of other elements of the Park.
