Loans for US$72 million granted to Ecuador for road infrastructure projects

The executive president of the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), Enrique García, today signed two loan agreements with Ecuadorian authorities. An agreement was signed with the Minister of Economy and Finance, Francisco Arosemena, for the Republic of Ecuador, and another with the Quito Metropolitan Mayor, Paco Moncayo. With these agreements the CAF grants total financing of US$72 million for major road integration infrastructure.

The first loan for US$22 million is to finance the Puyo-Macas road project, whose executing agency is the Ministry of Public Works and Communications. The second loan for US$50 provides partial finance for the road program of the Quito Metropolitan District.

García said the CAF was giving priority to these projects. The multilateral lender is committed to the development of infrastructure in its shareholder countries with an integration component, such as the Puyo-Macas corridor, as well as projects that create planned spaces in large cities, such as Quito.

The Puyo-Macas road project consists of upgrading this part of the Amazon Highway which will integrate the eastern region of Ecuador with Colombia to the north, and Peru and Brazil to the southeast. The new branch highway will connect the country’s most important oil producing centers and the main cities of this region of Ecuador.

The project is part of the South American Regional Integration Initiative (IIRSA) conceived to increase the competitiveness of the regional economy.

Renewing the Quito road system

The second loan agreement signed today finances a project for road upgrading in the Quito Metropolitan Area, as part of the Quito 21st Century development program whose objective is to convert the city into an integration hub that generates a national consciousness in a planned space.

Under these guidelines, the city government has designed the General Land Development Plan for the Quito Metropolitan District, as a planning instrument for the future growth of the city based on protecting public spaces and the environment, and disaster prevention.

With the implementation of this program, the city government is moving forward with the planning of its land area, equitable and rational use of the land, preservation and protection of its ecological and cultural heritage, and disaster prevention in high-risk areas, backed by the execution of efficient planning actions.

The projects selected are intended to solve the city’s serious problems of traffic congestion. They include road improvements at nine intersections with the heaviest traffic flow, the building of the Metropolitan Main Highway, together with studies of the South Land Transport Terminal and the extensions of Occidental and Mariscal Sucre avenues.