{"id":97670,"date":"2026-04-23T13:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T13:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:05:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:05:43","slug":"south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france","title":{"rendered":"South Africa Seals R1.9 Billion Deal with France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>France is in talks to lend South Africa money to support a program to regenerate its rundown cities, the European country\u2019s ambassador said.<\/p>\n<p>The funding would add to the $925 million lent to the country by the World Bank to finance the South African National Treasury\u2019s Metro Trading Services program, aimed at improving water and sanitation, electricity provision and solid-waste management services.<\/p>\n<p>In April last year, the Treasury said it would ask global development finance institutions including France\u2019s state-owned Agence Franc\u0327aise de De\u0301veloppement to augment the World Bank funding.<\/p>\n<p>France is \u201con the verge of providing another \u20ac100 million (R1.9 billion) loan to the metros in South Africa,\u201d David Martinon, France\u2019s ambassador to South Africa, said at an event in Johannesburg on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s \u201cso that they can actually renovate, change, reshape the way they approach service delivery in water management, waste management and the energy transition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The program focuses on cities where 22 million people, or more than a third of the country\u2019s population, live across an area of almost 30,000 square kilometers (11,583 square miles).<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s almost 20 times the size of London. The provision of services in major metropolitan areas such as Johannesburg and Durban has deteriorated in recent years, resulting in frequent power and water outages.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. France is in talks to lend South Africa money to support a program to regenerate its rundown cities, the European country\u2019s ambassador said. The funding would add to the $925 million lent to the country by the World Bank to finance the South African National Treasury\u2019s Metro Trading Services program, aimed at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":97669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-97670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>South Africa Seals R1.9 Billion Deal with France - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"France is in talks to lend South Africa money to support a program to regenerate its rundown cities, the European countr ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South Africa Seals R1.9 Billion Deal with France\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"France is in talks to lend South Africa money to support a program to regenerate its rundown cities, the European countr ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-23T13:58:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-23T14:05:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1776940424.759703.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"South Africa Seals R1.9 Billion Deal with France\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-23T13:58:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-23T14:05:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\"},\"wordCount\":235,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1776940424.759703.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/south-africa-seals-r1-9-billion-deal-with-france\",\"name\":\"South Africa Seals R1.9 Billion Deal with France - 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