LOANS
ARGENTINA. . .
$370 million to support efforts to increase productivity and employment opportunities for youth from low-income families.
The program will finance job training, career orientation and the establishment of vocational training councils. Approximately 9,000 training courses, designed to respond to the private sector skill needs, will be offered to around 180,000 beneficiaries. A network of employment offices will improve the services of intermediation, orientation, and placement support for approximately 400,000 persons.
The program will also finance scholarships for low-income students, with the goal of reducing the school dropout rate for those between the ages of 13 and 19.
The total cost of the program, which will be carried out by the Labor Ministry and the Education Ministry, is $637 million.
ARGENTINA. . .
$96 million to improve tax administration and foreign trade oversight by strengthening the Federal Public Revenue Administration.
The program will address one of the root causes of Argentina's public deficit: tax evasion, including social security contributions and foreign trade levies.
The legal and regulatory framework governing tax and customs administration will be reviewed and adjustments will be proposed.
Procedures to simplify and better monitor taxpayer compliance and foreign trade will be instituted. The program will also fund the development of communications and information systems that will support revenue collection and management.
The total cost of the program is $192 million.
BRAZIL. . .
$180 million to the state of Rio de Janeiro to upgrade low-income neighborhoods in the Baixada Fluminense region of the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area.
In addition to financing improvements in infrastructure for services such as basic sanitation, street paving, and recreation, the program will provide technical assistance to the governments of four participating municipalities so they will be better equipped to organize and operate services and establish financial control systems.
Approximately 360,000 low-income persons are expected to benefit from the program, which will cost a total of $300 million.
COSTA RICA. . .
$16.6 million to help modernize the state and promote greater private sector participation in infrastructure and finance.
The resources, which will finance technical assistance, include an IDB loan of $12,650,000 and three grants totaling $4 million from the Multilateral Investment Fund, an autonomous fund administered by the IDB.
The MIF resources will be used to:
---Open up banking and insurance to private investment and strengthen the institutional framework for these two sectors.
---Promote securities market development, including strengthening of the National Securities Commission.
---Establish a sound regulatory and institutional foundation to develop a concession system as an instrument for infrastructure sector development.
The total cost of the program is $24,830,000.
PANAMA. . .
$45 million to support reform of the water supply and sanitation sector, improving the efficiency and quality of the service.
The resources will help finance the restructuring of Panama's water and sanitation operating agency, the Instituto de Acueductos y Alcantarillados Nacionales, in order to bring in the necessary private sector financing and management.
This agency will be transformed into a mixed corporation, with 51 percent of the stock owned by a strategic private investor who will operate water and sanitation service in metropolitan Panama City.
The total cost of the program, to be carried out by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy and the new mixed corporation, is estimated at $65 million.
URUGUAY. . .
$25 million for the construction, operation, and maintenance of a 132-kilometer highway linking Montevideo with Punta del Este, as well as other access roads.
The project is the first approved for Uruguay from the Bank's Private Sector Department, and it is also Uruguay's first highway concession granted to the private sector to operate a formerly public facility.
After completion of the project, 90 percent of the highway between Montevideo and Punta del Este will be a two-lane toll road in either direction. The latter city is a tourism center that produces a major share of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
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MULTILATERAL INVESTMENT FUND
PARAGUAY. . .
$1,260,000 to support job skills training for rural youth.
The resources will support a variety of short courses for approximately 1,300 young people between the ages of 15 and 30, with special emphasis on the agricultural sector and on providing technical, entrepreneurial, and life skills designed to integrate youth into the productive sector of the economy.
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INTER-AMERICAN INVESTMENT CORPORATION
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC...
A $2.5 million loan and a subordinated loan of $500,000 to Banco Intercontinental S.A., for a credit line for leasing operations targeted to small and medium-sized companies.
PERU. . .
$3 million loan and a $3 million investment in Banco BANEX to benefit the country's small and medium-sized companies in the industrial, fishing, manufacturing, mining, construction, chemical, energy, tourism and agribusiness sectors.
REGIONAL. . .
$10 million equity investment in South America Private Equity Fund Coinvestors, L.P., which provides long-term capital to medium-sized companies in South America by coinvesting with an existing fund sponsored by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).
REGIONAL. . .
$5 million equity investment in Fondelec Essential Services Growth Fund, L.P., a firm that invests a minimum of 75 percent of its resources in Latin America and the Caribbean. The targeted investment areas are electricity, gas, water, and wireless communications projects. The capitalization of this eight-year fund is $100 million.
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BONDS
YEN…A 30 billion yen dual-currency issue under the Bank's Euro Medium Term Note Program. Daiwa Europe Ltd. was the lead manager on the issue, which was priced at 100 percent and pays a semiannual coupon of 4.15 percent. Though denominated in yen, the issue is repayable in dollars.
LIRA…300 billion Italian lira issued under the Euro Medium-Term Note Program. Caboto Holdin SIM SpA, and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell were the lead managers on the issue, which was priced at 101.296 percent with a maturity date of Oct. 2, 2007.