IDB approves $300 million credit line to improve integration in Cuenca del Plata

The Inter-American Development Bank has approved a credit line for $300 million to improve the integration of countries located in the Cuenca del Plata, through actions in sustainable infrastructure, trade facilitation and urban development in border areas.

The Cuenca del Plata includes the basins of the Paraná, Paraguay, Uruguay and La Plata rivers. It encompasses 3.2 million square kilometers and is home to more than 130 million inhabitants in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The region's hydrocarbon and mining operations, retail and agro-industry generate almost 80 percent of the countries' GDP.

The Conditional Credit Line for Projects (CCLIP) is an instrument to finance a sector or multiple sectors with the aim of making the loan preparation and approval processes more agile.

The Credit Line will kick off with an initial operation of $100 million. Its objective is to improve the logistical and transport infrastructure capabilities of the Cuenca countries, improving urban development in border areas and strengthening the capacity of the Financial Fund for the Development of the Plata Basin (FONPLATA, for its Spanish acronym), among others.

This first operation of the CCLIP will seek to lower vehicle operation costs and travel times, and increase the number of loan executing agencies trained in design and supervision of projects, and in incorporating the cross-cutting themes of gender, diversity and climate change.

The vast majority of the multilateral development bank integration projects cater to national programs. The CCLIP will tap into the comparative advantages of FONPLATA to design and execute small-scale projects, preferably by subnational entities, with the aim of facilitating the countries' integration into the global economy.

FONPLATA will be responsible for supervising the sub-loans, which will be provided under standards of eligibility previously agreed with the IDB. For instance, eligible projects cannot be larger than $50 million for infrastructure, $30 million for urban development, and $10 million for integration, rural development, and tourism.