Board and Shareholders Meetings to be held in Caracas next week

(Caracas, March 20, 1992).- Next week (March 23, 24 and 25), the 73rd Meeting of the Board and the 23rd of Shareholders will be held in Caracas. Both meetings are the first to be held since the new president & CEO, Enrique García, took office on December 10 last.

On this occasion, a representative of Ecuador will be appointed to chair the Board and Shareholders meetings during the March 1992 and 1993 period. According to the CAF Establishing Agreement, this post rotates annually among the member countries of the Andean Group by alphabetical order.

In the meetings, the management report for 1991 and distribution of net income will be submitted for consideration by the directors and later approval. The proposed budget will also be presented together with the action plan for 1992.

The Board will consider three important loans. The first is for the Methanol II project in the Venezuelan petrochemical sector, which has high priority in Venezuela. The purpose is to build a chemical plant to produce 670,000 metric tons a year of methanol from natural gas, a very abundant raw material in the country. If approved, this will be the largest loan that CAF has granted to a private sector company (US$47 million).

The second project is expansion of the Ballenas-Cartagena gas pipeline. The borrower is Promotora de la Interconexión de los Gasoductos de la Costa Atlántica (PROMIGAS, SA), the largest gas transport company in Colombia.

Lastly, a loan for US$20 million will be considered for the company Empresa Minera Inti Raymi SA of Bolivia, to expand open cast mining of gold and silver by means of installation of a processing plant for these minerals. The Kori Kollo mine is located near the city of Oruro.

Other matters to be considered include increasing two lines of credit granted by CAF to Banco de Comercio Exterior of Colombia and to the Peruvian government for the mining sector.