Președintele BEI, Werner Hoyer, în prima vizită oficială în Honduras: reuniuni la nivel înalt pentru a discuta despre cooperarea și sprijinul pentru sectorul public

On his first official visit to Honduras,  Banca Europeană de Investiții (BEI) President Werner Hoyer met on 14 August with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in the country’s capital. Further meetings were held with Finance Minister Wilfredo Rafael Cerrato and Minister of Infrastructure Roberto Ordoñez. The talks focused on the Bank’s engagement in the country’s transport and energy sector. The EIB’s visit was supported by the EU Delegation to Honduras.

At their meeting, President Hoyer and President Hernández discussed various areas of cooperation suitable for support and investments by the EU Bank. It is primarily in the areas of infrastructure, transport, energy, in particular renewable energy, and climate change mitigation where EIB funding could make a considerable contribution to the country’s social development and economic growth.

President Hoyer called the exchange an excellent starting point that helped define concrete projects warranting EIB financing. “The Honduran administration has been very supportive in identifying suitable areas of co-operation. With its long-standing expertise in Latin America, the EIB stands ready to contribute to the country’s economic growth and employment. I look forward to continuing our dialogue and cooperation in the near future.”

In further meetings with Honduran Finance Minister Wilfredo Rafael Cerrato and Infrastructure and Energy Minister Roberto Ordoñez, the country’s road network was identified as one potential project to be supported by the EIB. In the energy sector the EU Bank is already co-operating closely with the Inter-American Development Bank to draw up an electrification programme that would mainly support energy transmission infrastructure for renewable energy in the western part of Honduras.

Climate-change mitigation has also been a focus of the EIB’s cooperation with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), which has its headquarters in Honduras. In 2013, for example, the EIB provided CABEI with USD 230 million for investments in hydropower, wind, geothermal and photovoltaic renewable energy schemes across Central America. CABEI is one of the EIB’s main financial partners in the region.

President Werner Hoyer will continue his official trip, travelling on to Panama.

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Banca Europeană de Investiții is the long-term lending institution of the European Union and its shareholders are the member states. Its remit is to make long-term finance available for viable projects in order to contribute towards EU policy objectives.

The EIB has been active in Latin America since 1993 under mandates granted by the EU Council and the European Parliament. During this period the EU Bank has signed contracts for 90 projects in the region, involving finance totalling €6.7 billion. On 1 July 2014 the EU’s new External Lending Mandate, covering the period 2014-2020, entered into force, providing for a ceiling of almost €2.3bn for operations in Latin America. In addition, in some cases the EIB can also provide lending from own resources under the Climate Action and Environment Facility or the Strategic Projects Facility, both amounting to a total of €2bn.

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