1.
GV Exterior Foreign Affairs building, Brazzaville
0.05

2.
CU and SV French Ambassador (left) and Congolese Minister of Transport seated (2 shots)
0.15

3.
SV French and Congolese officials seated (2 shots)
0.21

4.
CU Congolese Minister sign agreement
0.27

5.
SV French Ambassador finishes signing
0.34

6.
SV Officials applaud as Minister and Ambassador stand and shake hands
0.47



Initials OS/WLW/MR/1825



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: France has agreed to give the Congo two thousand million CFA francs -- nearly five million pounds sterling -- to improve facilities at the river port of Mossaka.

SYNOPSIS: The aid agreement was signed at a ceremony in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, on Tuesday (July 27) between the French Ambassador, M. Pierre Hunt, and the Congolese Minister of Public Works and Transport, M. Jean-Jaques Ontza Ontza.

The agreement marks a new step in the programme of aid by the French Agency for Aid and Co-Operation, which has contributed to several previous development projects in the Congo, a former French colony. The latest agreement brings French aid to the Congo in any one year to a record height.

Other French aid programmes for the Congo have included similar port development projects at Point Noire, the nation's principal outlet to the sea, and the establishment of a railway system from Brazzaville to the Atlantic seaboard.