Do­mini­ca has signed a US$41 mil­lion loan agree­ment with the Sau­di Fund for De­vel­op­ment (SFD) for a project aimed at en­hanc­ing the cap­i­tal, Roseau, and which the gov­ern­ment said will play a ma­jor role in the fu­ture so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of the is­land.

Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, speak­ing at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny held over the week­end, said that the Roseau En­hance­ment Project is a “ma­jor in­vest­ment in the fu­ture of the cap­i­tal city and by ex­ten­sion the fu­ture of Do­mini­ca.

“We have long recog­nised that for our na­tion to flour­ish, we must build mod­ern, re­silient and sus­tain­able in­fra­struc­ture. Sev­er­al large scale ini­tia­tives are cur­rent­ly un­der­way and oth­ers are about to com­mence about the coun­try and the Roseau En­hance­ment Project is a key com­po­nent of our vi­sion for long ter sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” Sker­rit said.

“Our ef­forts in the cap­i­tal will stim­u­late lo­cal busi­ness­es and open doors for new en­ter­pris­es, cre­at­ing more jobs and op­por­tu­ni­ties for every­one. Equal­ly im­por­tant is the chance to en­hance the qual­i­ty of life for our res­i­dents,” he said, adding “this ini­tia­tive is not on­ly about es­thet­ics, but about cre­at­ing a space where peo­ple want to work, lie and in­vest in the fu­ture”.

SFD chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Sul­tan Al-Mar­shad, said the sign­ing of the agree­ment “marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone with the sign­ing of the first de­vel­op­ment loan agree­ment worth US$41 mil­lion.

“The project will help im­prove roads con­nec­tiv­i­ty, re­duce traf­fic, en­hance safe­ty…and con­tribute to the res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it will cre­ate many job op­por­tu­ni­ties and will help for the tourism sec­tor,” he said, adding “this project will act as a dri­ver for so­cial and eco­nom­ic growth and im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple of Do­mini­ca”.

The loan has a 2.5 per cent in­ter­est rate, and eight year grace pe­ri­od and a 28-year re­pay­ment pe­ri­od.