Washington, D.C.- On October 5 and 6, 2006, the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) hosted at its headquarters a two-day workshop to develop an annotated, publicly-available, carbon credits sale and purchase agreement template that reflects in a more balanced manner the interests of buyers, sellers, and financial institutions. Funding for this event came partially from the Korea-IIC SME Development Trust Fund.
More than thirty international legal experts from the private sector, civil society, intergovernmental organizations, and financial institutions from all over the world participated in the initiative. The annotated model agreement will be particularly helpful in improving access to financing for smaller-scale developers, who frequently do not have access to international legal counsel during the development phases of their projects when they face negotiations for purchase of the carbon credits they plan to generate.
The IIC believes that this is a great opportunity to promote climate change projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IIC is increasingly supporting projects that generate carbon credits by providing sponsoring companies with non-reimbursable technical assistance, as well as financing. The IIC is also one of the few financiers that have used the revenues from carbon credits for credit enhancement in a loan transaction for one of its projects.
The Inter-American Investment Corporation is a multilateral financial institution that is a member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group. It provides financing (in the form of equity investments, loans, guarantees, and other instruments) and advisory services to private enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IIC's mission is to promote the economic development of its regional member countries by stimulating the establishment, expansion, and modernization of private enterprises, particularly those that are small and medium in size. For more information on the IIC's activities, please visit www.iic.int.