Barbados is set to benefit from millions of dollars in concessionary funding from one of its main development partners for several private sector-led projects across a number of sectors.
Officials of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group gave this indication during an interview with Barbados TODAY on Tuesday.
Following a meeting with several Government and private sector officials on Monday, James Scriven, Chief Executive Officer of the IDB Invest, the private sector arm of the IDB Group, said “we are under-invested today in Barbados”.
He said the IDB Group was keen on continuing to increase its funding for projects in Bridgetown and the rest of the region.
“We should be investing around US$100 to US$150 million a year into the Barbadian economy,” said Scriven.
“What that means on a real-term basis is that our objective, our intention is to improve the lives of the citizens.”
He explained that those investments would be targeted into a number of specific areas including infrastructure development, renewable energy, manufacturing, tourism-related projects, digitisation, agriculture, the blue economy and climate change mitigation.
He said IDB Invest was also keen on partnering with financial institutions to provide financing.
Indicating that discussions were ongoing with private sector players across the region and they were at various stages, Scriven said he was not in a position to single out specific projects at this stage.
However, he noted that in relation to Barbados, the amount of funding for various projects could easily jump to around US$350 million in the short term.
“Today we have a portfolio of about US$100 million. We are expanding it and want to expand. We are in discussions about an additional US$350 million in business in all these areas,” he said.
A part of that amount is expected to go towards funding of projects related to the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) in the form of a revolving loan to allow Barbadians to purchase water tanks to better prepare for drought conditions.
“We are in discussion with the Barbados Water Authority to see how we can help them with their very ambitious expansion plans,” said Scriven.
This comes a day after Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that her administration had approached the IDB Invest for funding assistance for water storage tanks.
Barbados is already benefiting from some US$90 million in funding from the IDB Invest for modernisation projects at the Bridgetown Port. The lending institution is also expected to provide funding for a joint Barbados Port Inc and private sector bulk storage and handling facility project at the Bridgetown Port.
Viviana Alva Hart, Country Representative for the IDB Group, said the multilateral investment institution, through its IDB Lab, was also working closely with entrepreneurs in Barbados and the rest of the region to ensure innovation and scaling up of businesses. (MM)
