BCIE: improvement in security in El Salvador generates confidence for investment

The country director of the multilateral, Luis Rodríguez, affirmed that the reduction in crime rates allows considering more investments with a social and economic focus in the territory.

The achievements in public security of the Government of President Nayib Bukele generate greater confidence for investment in Salvadoran territory, said the country director of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Luis Rodríguez, in a television interview.

The executive emphasized that the possibility of more capital inflowing into the territory is not only generated from the national and foreign private sector, but also from multilateral organizations, since in the absence of crime problems “investments come to life much more.”

«The fact of removing insecurity from the equation leaves other types of things, challenges, needs on the table. On the educational issue, the fact that more children are going to school makes it possible to evaluate new projects; On the issue of housing, people can buy houses where they couldn’t before due to crime,” he said.

In this sense, he pointed out that the vision is to expand the portfolio of initiatives that the bank already has in the country with a focus on the development of the productive and social fabric of the communities that were previously besieged by gangs.

During the four years of President Nayib Bukele’s administration, CABEI has invested more than $4.6 billion in El Salvador, which is divided into areas such as productivity, security with the Territorial Control Plan, health, sports, as well as mobility infrastructure, logistics and technology.

“We have a fairly large portfolio of $4.6 billion in the country in these four years of this government’s administration. 87% goes to public, non-sovereign public investment projects, non-reimbursable technical cooperation and donations,” he mentioned.

For example, in this period, a little more than $1,000 million was injected into economic development, which includes the $600 million from the Trust for the Economic Recovery of Salvadoran Companies (Firempresa), which granted loans with favorable conditions for businesses affected by the pandemic, as well as an investment of just over $400 million to strengthen micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Likewise, Rodríguez explained that his framework of action has also been directed towards My New School, with an agreement signed for $200 million for the reconstruction and remodeling of infrastructure of school centers located in departments with a high poverty rate.

At the same time, regarding sports, the organization supports Prodeporte with $115 million, an initiative of the National Sports Institute (Indes), which recovers the infrastructure, but also seeks to generate a community impact.

“CABEI is supporting the country with $115 million for sports infrastructure. A package called Prodeporte was prepared, which through the improvement of the sports infrastructure opens the door to carrying out other types of strategies to support the communities. Likewise, this investment has served for the Central American and Caribbean Games”, he pointed out.

Photo and news: Diario El Salvador