BONDS
The IDB launched a $1 billion global bond issue with a semiannual coupon of 6.375 percent and maturity date of Oct. 22, 2007. The issue, which was priced at 99.373 percent, met with immediate favorable market response and widespread demand. It was jointly managed by J. P. Morgan Securities, Inc. and Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith.
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CLARIFICATION
The Figuratively Speaking column in the IDB's July edition included inaccurate information about Uruguay that had previously been published in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 1997. That report relied on outdated statistics about access to safe drinking water and health services in Uruguay, which distorted the calculation of Uruguay's score in the report's Human Poverty Index (hpi). According to the undp's Uruguay office, the latest figures result in an hpi index of 5.4 for Uruguay, as opposed to the 11.7 score published in the report.