Spain, IDB announce 67 mln USD fund for Haiti

Spain and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Friday announced the creation of a 67 million U.S. dollars fund for Haiti's small and medium-sized enterprises.

The joint announcement was made at the 20th Ibero-American Summit in Argentina's seaside resort of Mar del Plata.

"Haiti needs to rebuild highways, bridges and its social network as well. To achieve this, the most important thing is to create jobs," Spain's Secretary of Development Cooperation Soraya Rodriguez said.

The fund will allow greater access to credits of 10,000 to 300,000 dollars for small and medium-sized businesses in Haiti and will be managed by the Inter-American Corporation of Investments which will channel the resources into local financial institutions.

"Haiti has suffered the terrible consequences of the earthquake on Jan. 12, which has produced a great humanitarian disaster. On top of this, (it also) suffers the recent terrible sanitary crisis due to the cholera epidemic," Rodriguez said.

IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno said it was no easy feat to put the fund in place, but they have developed a strategy.

"We are going to cooperate with local institutions. The projects will be presented to them and we will provide part of the capital," Moreno said.

Moreno said that the IDB had committed to providing 200 million dollars in yearly aid to Haiti between 2010 and 2020. Meanwhile,the IDB also canceled Haiti's debt of 450 million dollars.

"It is important to generate jobs, the Haitian society has to be rebuilt," Moreno said, adding that the damages left by the earthquake equalled 120 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product.
(Source:xinhua)