CAF Approves USD 76.7 million for Padillo-El Salto Highway in Chuquisaca

(Lima, July 2,2013).-CAF-development bank of Latin America- has approved a USD 76.7 million loan for the Plurinational State of Bolivia to finance the construction and paving of the Padilla-El Salto Highway, which will foster economic and social development in the country's southeast, especially in the Chuquisaca Department.

CAF's Executive President Enrique García said the project serves as a crucial highway integration project that will provide numerous benefits for the Chuquisaca Department and its inhabitants by expanding the Diagonal Jaime Mendoza Highway system and provide a stronger link between Chuquisaca with Oruro and Potosí. The project will expand the flow of communications and commerce across the region, reduce travel times and will help improve competitiveness for dozens of pepper and peanut growers' associations in the area.

"CAF supports strategic plans among member nations to help them achieve their objectives to bring about productive transformation, institutional development, sociopolitical innovation as well as infrastructure projects that integrate and facilitate trade among neighboring countries," said García.

García added that the Padilla-El Salto stretch of highway will improve west-bound and south-bond traffic flows on roads that make up the Central Interoceanic Highway managed by Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), which links Pacific ports located in Peru and Chile with Argentina and Paraguay.

The 49-kilometer Padilla-El Salto project will cost a total of USD 109.3 million, of which CAF will finance 70%. The Chuquisaca Department will arrange financing for the remaining 30%. The Bolivian Highway Administration will manage the project.

Funding provided by CAF will also update studies needed to complete a section of highway beginning in El Salto and arriving in Monteagudo, a stretch that will fully pave the Jaime Mendoza Diagonal Highway system.