Bolivia will push the Inter-American Development Bank for a debt-relief package that would forgive US$3.5 billion (euro2.9 billion) owed by the Andean nation and four other poor Latin American countries, Bolivia’s finance minister said.
Luiz Alberto Arce said newly elected leftist President Evo Morales would lobby for the debt relief when he arrives Sunday for the annual IDB meeting on funding for regional development programs in this southeastern Brazilian city.
The proposal to eliminate IDB debt for Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras, Guyana and Nicaragua is sure to be a major theme at the meeting and could become contentious
Brazil and Mexico support the debt relief idea but don’t want to pay for it through their IDB ownership stakes. The two countries, home to Latin America’s first and second largest economies, instead want the United States and Canada, and possibly European countries that hold IDB membership, to shoulder the burden, Mexican Finance Minister Francisco Gil said.
“The position of Brazil and Mexico is that this relief can’t come at our cost,” Gil told reporters in Belo Horizonte, where delegates are meeting behind closed doors before the event officially starts Monday.
The money for debt relief “has to be put up by the developed countries,” Gil said. Bolivia owes the IDB US$1.6 billion (euro1.3 billion) of the total amount of debt relief sought. The 47-nation bank is owned by its member countries, mainly from the Western Hemisphere, but also including some from Europe, as well as Japan and South Korea.
Morales will arrive in Brazil with some political ammunition: On Friday, the World Bank relieved Bolivia of US$1.5 billion (euro1.2 billion) in debt.
Delegates at the IDB meeting, one of Latin America’s most important annual economic forums, are also expected to discuss how the bank can improve the region’s crumbling infrastructure, boost economies and promote regional integration.
Luis Alberto Moreno, a longtime Colombian ambassador to Washington elected last year to a five-year-term as head of the bank, is overseeing the meeting for the first time.
Moreno wants to maintain the Washington, D.C.-based bank’s role as a key source of funding for government projects while expanding loans to the private sector. He also wants to advocate small-scale Latin American development projects for the region’s poor masses that can serve as examples for more expensive efforts.
New projects that could come up at the meeting are Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ multibillion-dollar idea to create a vast natural gas pipeline spanning South America, and a US$810 million (euro669.2 million) highway project to connect Brazil’s Atlantic coast to Peru’s Pacific ports before the end of the decade.
The meeting will bring together leaders in a region that has seen a tilt to the left in recent years. Morales, a strident leftist and the country’s first Indian leader, will rub shoulders with Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a wealthy agricultural landowner. Both took office in January.
The IDB also wants to put greater emphasis on helping poor Latin Americans and Caribbean citizens to open savings accounts, pave neighborhood roads and receive electricity in the communities where they struggle to eke out a living.
On Saturday, about 1,500 protesters opposed to privatization projects funded by the bank marched peacefully in downtown Belo Horizonte. They said water-supply privatization projects funded by the bank haven’t helped poor Brazilians who still lack basic sanitation services.
Other groups oppose the bank’s funding of a gas pipeline project in Peru’s southern Amazon that has suffered five leaks since it began operations in mid-2004.
The IBD has so far approved US$135 million (euro111.5 million) for the project. Groups opposed to it are attending the meeting in a bid to prevent the bank from supplying more funding.
“We’re here to demand that the IDB take a hard look at the megainfrastructure projects it is financing,” said Attosa Soltani of Amazon Watch.
