Arab fund lends Lebanon $208 million

A Kuwait-based Arab financing fund on Monday extended two loans worth a total of 60 million dinars ($208 million) to the Lebanese government to help them revive the private sector and rebuild electrical power facilitates damaged in last summer's Israeli-Hizbullah war. Lebanon's finance minister, Jihad Azour, signed the loan agreements with the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development while on a brief visit to Kuwait, the state-owned Kuwait News Agency said. Azour accompanied Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who is touring Arab states ahead of a January 25 international donors' conference in Paris aimed at securing financial aid for the country's struggling post-war economy.