* Would pay for imports like food and fuel, minister says
* Pound currency has strengthened after interim oil deal
* South Sudan has cut back on imports since oil shutdown
By Alexander Dziadosz
JUBA, Sept 17 (Reuters) - South Sudan aims to seal a $200 million credit
line from an international bank within three months to cover imports and
bolster the local currency, a minister said, after an oil shutdown erased
the source of almost all its hard currency.
In June, the newly-independent nation secured a similar deal for $100
million from Qatar National Bank (QNB), used to issue letters of credit for
imports like food, fuel, building materials and medicine.
South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan last year under a 2005 peace deal,
shut down its oil output of about 350,000 barrels per day in January in a
row over how much it should pay to export through pipelines running through
Sudanese territory.
The government still had about 20 percent of the QNB credit line left and
planned to use it over the next two months, Commerce Minister Garang Diing
Akuong said.
The letters of credit allow importers to buy dollars at the bank rate of
3.16 pounds to the dollar - a big discount to the black market price, he
said.
"For the last three months, a lot of business people were using this
facility," Akuong told Reuters at the weekend.
The deal also helped the South Sudanese Pound strengthen on the black market
over the last few months from around 5.5 pounds to the dollar to about 4.2
now.
Akuong said he expected the new credit line would be settled "within two to
three months, maximum," but declined to reveal the name of the bank because
it had requested negotiations proceed in a "cool and quiet manner".
Fluctuations in the South Sudanese Pound are watched closely by foreign
firms active in the country including cell phone operators MTN and Zain,
which do business in pounds and then struggle to convert them into dollars
to repatriate profits.
In addition to QNB, prominent international banks operating in South Sudan
are Kenya Commercial Bank, Equity Bank and an affiliate of Dubai Islamic
bank.
The oil shutdown erased about 98 percent of the landlocked nation's state
revenues. It has almost no industry apart from oil after decades of civil
war with north Sudan.
South Sudanese officials have said it could resume some oil production by
the end of the year but restoring full output could take until midway
through next year.
Stabilising the pound in the longer term will depend on the country boosting
currently meagre exports, Akuong said.
South Sudan loses about $1 billion a year in hard currency to neighbouring
Kenya and Uganda through remittances, informal trade and imports of goods as
diverse as medicine, cement, clothes, furniture and food, he said. (Editing
by John Stonestreet)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Mon Sep 17 2012 - 18:50:41 EDT
