CABEI grants US$300 million loan to Dominican Republic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) signed Monday (9) a US$300 million loan for budgetary support to the government of the Dominican Republic, advised the executive president of the entity, Dante Mossi.

After holding a meeting with President Luis Abinader, the executive informed in a press conference about some details of the meeting during which the loan signed with the Dominican State was materialized.

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For the future, CABEI expects to participate “in more operations in the form of public-private partnerships”, in which it will be the private initiative “that takes on the debt to finance expansion projects such as ports and railroads”, as well as other initiatives discussed with Abinader “today”, said the executive.

“We must recognize that the Dominican Republic has a very dynamic private sector”, he said, “and we have been asked to get closer to see how we can support, not only the big businessmen but also the small ones, and, probably, by September we will issue the first CABEI bonds in the country to supply MSMEs (small and medium enterprises) in pesos”, he advanced.

In this sense, Mossi explained that work is being done “in project preparation funds, in pre-investment, in different initiatives” that the Bank wants to develop “without generating debt, as well as donations for the social sector”, said Mossi, who mentioned the railroad project that will link Santiago with Santo Domingo as one of its best for the future.

Regarding economic reactivation after Covid-19, he stressed that “it is essential to have partners with whom to dynamize the economy” as well as “to be innovative” when financing projects with formulas that “do not generate more weight on public finances,” especially at a time like the present, in which “many countries in the region have debt problems”.

He also indicated that the Dominican Republic has “ratified its interest in being part of this Bank and has increased its shareholding” in the entity, so that “today it is more of an owner of CABEI than yesterday.” However, he did not give details in this regard.

Founded in 1960 with headquarters in Honduras, CABEI’s objective is to promote economic integration and balanced economic and social development in the Central American region, which includes the founding countries (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) and the non-founding regional countries, attending to and aligning itself with the interests of all partners.