The Multilateral Investment Fund announced today the approval of a $1,9 million financing to the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, to increase the competitiveness of its central region’s agri-food and metalworking clusters.
The Santa Fe province’s central region, led by the city of Rafaela, is known for its entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. The agribusiness and metalworking productive clusters define the region’s economy with 800 small and medium-sized industrial enterprises and 1,500 milk-producing businesses.
The regional development agency Partnership for Development and Competitive Innovation, Rafaela Agency (ACDICAR in Spanish) will be in charge of the project and will match with its own resources the funding provided. The initiative will benefit micro, small and medium-sized companies in the central departments of Castellanos, Las Colonias, San Martín, San Jerónimo and San Cristóbal.
By diversifying regional production and exports, introducing new technologies and know-how in supply chains and facilitating public-private cooperation and business development, the project will expand the province’s presence in international markets.
The project will improve links among technological and productive enterprises, create a co-financing facility for joint innovation and strengthen the institutional framework for competitiveness, enhancing capacity for public-private cooperation.
ACDICAR was recently created by the municipality of Rafaela in association with the city’s trade and industrial center. Its purpose is to provide support for the development of the central region’s private sector through development funds and instruments offered by international and national authorities.
The Multilateral Investment Fund is an autonomous fund, administered by the IDB, that provides grants, investments and loans to promote private sector growth, labor force training and small enterprise modernization in Latin America and the Caribbean.