“The Covid-19 pandemic has represented a health and economic setback for the whole world. Through this financing with CABEI, we will be exchanging expensive debt for cheap debt that will allow us to protect the health of the Costa Rican population and also protect the country’s public finances,” said President Alvarado, as quoted by CABEI. Before Costa Rica receives the financing, it must be approved by the Legislative Assembly. CABEI says the loan has a 20-year term and five-year grace period but didn’t share the interest rate.
Dante Mossi, CABEI’s executive president, has stressed it is necessary to support large projects such as the Costa Rican interurban train, regional electrical interconnection, and financial support for governments and businesses in the region with a view to post-pandemic economic recovery. Source ticotimes.net
Costa Rica has contracts with Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and through the Covax facility for Covid-19 vaccines.
Costa Rica hopes to vaccinate at least 3.5 million people by the end of 2021. As of May 24, the latest available data, the country had administered 1.45 million vaccines. “We reaffirm our commitment as the Central American bank supporting the efforts of our partner countries to combat the pandemic. We understand that this financing will impact more than 3.7 million inhabitants, thus managing to immunize a large majority of the Costa Rican population,” Mossi said. (https://www.bollyinside.com/news/central-american-bank-approves-80-million-to-finance-vaccines-in-costa-rica)
