The Inter-American Development Bank today announced the approval of a $30 million loan to Uruguay to strengthen the country’s capacity for research, technological development, innovation, and business competitiveness.
The program will finance technological investments that can be applied by companies or groups of companies seeking to increase competitiveness, and it will enhance the country’s capacity for complex research in a broad range of disciplines, priorities, and specialties in science and technology.
Science and technology and the national innovation system will be planned and developed in a coordinated and systematic way and will include regional and international linkages.
Institutions specializing in science and technology will be strengthened, especially those in the Ministry of Education,* which will carry out the program.
The total cost of the program is $50 million. The IDB loan is for a 20-year term, with a five-year grace period, at the variable annual interest rate, now 7.03 percent. Local counterpart funds total $20 million.
During the 1990s the IDB provided $35 million in financing to assist the development of science and technology in Uruguay.