JOHANNESBURG: The World Bank has approved a $750-million (660-million-euro) loan to support South Africa’s Covid response and to bolster the economic recovery from the pandemic, the Treasury said on Friday.

In a statement, the Treasury said the loan aims at “protecting the poor and vulnerable from the adverse socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic and supporting a resilient and sustainable economic recovery”.

South Africa has the continent’s second-largest economy. The pandemic has left nearly 94,000 people dead, from 3.5 million cases, the highest toll in Africa.

A series of lockdowns and health regulations hobbled the economy, pushing unemployment to a record 34.9 percent in the third quarter of last year.

Since the start of the pandemic, the World Bank has deployed over $157 billion across more than 100 countries to try to mitigate the economic fallout.

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