grant facility for governments in developing countries for infrastructure development (ORIO) 

ORIO is a grant facility for governments in developing countries for infrastructure development. The facility is provided by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the responsibility of the Minister for Development Cooperation. The latter has entrusted the implementation of the program to an agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agentschap NL.

The government of a designated emerging market country may apply for an ORIO grant with Agentschap NL.  (A private party may however have initiated the project.)  Agentschap NL will decide whether a proposal is eligible for a grant.  The non-grant portion of the project must be financed by other means, one of which could be a commercial loan.  In many cases, export credit insurance would be available for such a commercial loan.  Please consult the relevant country page on our website to see whether there is cover available for the non-grant portion of transactions with an ORIO grant (or similar grant from other countries or (multi-lateral) institutions).

Export credit insurance cover is subject to the foreign government providing an unconditional guarantee for repayment of the commercial loan.  The transaction amount, excluding the grant, is limited to € 15 mln. The limit per country is € 50 mln (for “micro-states” € 10 mln).  The maximum repayment period is 10 years.

Given that these transactions are concluded with the public sector, they must meet the concessionality requirements applying to the country concerned, as agreed by OECD countries to promote sustainable lending practices.

For further details about the ORIO programme, please refer to the ORIO website: www.orio.nl .