The State of Paráin the Brazilian Amazon will receive a $26.4 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to stimulate its ecotourism activity in order to generate new employment opportunities and increase household income.
The State of Paráhas vast environmental assets and cultural resources that might serve as basis for a strong tourism industry, but this potential has not yet been fully developed. Paráreceives only 0.29 of the international tourism that visits Brazil.
The State has more than 60 percent of the population living in poverty and 14 percent in extreme poverty. Therefore, in order to ensure that the new tourism revenues benefit the most vulnerable, the project will concentrate in 6 municipalities with high tourism potential and poverty rates above the national average.
The project is expected to help create more than thousand formal jobs directly linked to the program and lift up to 140,000 out of poverty through the resulting impact from increased visitor’s numbers, longer average stay and higher tourism spending.
The program will finance studies, works, equipment and technical assistance in order to increase formal employment in tourism characteristic activities. Among others, it will improve infrastructure and basic services, update available information on outbound ecotourism markets and will promote entrepreneurship and inclusion of low-income households in ecotourism activities. Furthermore, it will strengthen the State’s Tourism Department (SETUR) and its statistic system. Additionally, it will improve the environmental and social management by financing environmental planning, supervision and impact monitoring.
The IDB loan with an interest rate based on LIBOR has a 25-year maturity and a 66-month grace period.