$200 million IDB considers loan for Barbados

The Government of Barbados is expected to be on the receiving end of a $200 million loan for sustainable development, resilience, water and sanitation from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

IDB president Mauricio Claver-Carone, after meetings with Prime Minister Mia Mottley and other high-level officials expressed confidence that the financial institution’s board of directors would approve the new policy-based loan by Wednesday.

During the two-day visit that included IDB chief of staff and chief strategy officer, Jessica Bedoya and the bank’s vice president for countries, Richard Alvardo Martinez, visits were made to “strategic projects” like the Bridgetown Port and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology.
“The port is a strategic project for Barbados that can really be a gamechanger from a commercial perspective. And we are looking into ways how we can work with the government of Barbados, but also with the private sector on projects and financing, in order to be able to modernize more which will be a game-changer on the innovation space,” Claver-Carone revealed.

He announced that the bank would be working on one of the world’s first debtfor-nature swaps with the Mia Mottley administration and lauded Prime Minister Mottley’s forward-looking posture.

Out of the visits, the IDB president underscored a major opportunity for the country to improve its productivity in the area of innovation, green energy and photovoltaic energy that would provide opportunities for the country’s youth.

“There is a huge boom that we are seeing in Latin America and the Caribbean generally than venture capital investment on the digital sphere.
This year has been a record year in capital investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There’s already been $14 billion as compared to last year where it was $5 billion, and that was the record before. So it’s like the last five years combined, we are seeing 35 per cent of the world’s fintechs right here in Latin America and the Caribbean. We’re seeing just this outburst of talent and innovation and creativity and Barbados is no exemption to that,” he said.

“If we can help to create skills training in that regard, we want Barbados to be the first destination where U.S, European and other digital companies go looking for talent, but not only talent, but also innovate in that regard and create their own business,” the president added.

Bedoya also underscored the development of the port as a competitive tool for maritime, cargo transport and transhipment.

“We have instruments and tools that can really help bring the port, not only into the level of modernisation that it seeks, but also put Barbados on the map in terms of the Eastern Caribbean and beyond in the broader Caribbean region and space to be a leader in transhipment and the movement of goods,” she told reporters.

“I am very proud of the work that the IDB is doing in Barbados on productivity, on youth upscaling, and I think there’s a lot more that we can do, and I think in the conversation with the Prime Minister and her ministers, it was very abundantly clear to all of us that this was just the first of very many conversations,” Bedoya added.

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb