Eskom is the first South African company to receive a major financial boost of 2.6 billion from the first set of loans approved by the New Development Bank. The new multilateral lender set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in February, has approved 11.7 billion rand for renewable energy projects in four of its member countries. The bank said South Africa’s loan would be used to build transmission lines to shift 670MW of electricity and to generate 500MW of renewable energy generation by independent power producers. The loans will run for 12 to 20 years, and more plans are at various stages of consideration in the Development Bank’s pipeline, including loans to Russia. To help us unpack this we are joined in studio by:
PATRICK BOND: A political and economic analyst
CYRIL PRINSLOO: Researcher on the Economic Diplomacy Programme at the Institute for International Affairs: