Corporacion Andina de Fomento, a Latin American development bank that will lend over $14 billion this year, is seeking to add new members from Europe, the Middle East and Asian countries to finance new projects in the region.
The Caracas-based bank known as CAF, one of Latin America’s largest lenders, is in conversations with several countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India and Korea to join its existing 21 members, President Sergio Diaz-Granados said.
The process of expanding the bank to new members will take time, with CAF more immediately focused on adding some Caribbean nations to reach between 27 and 28 members. Spain and Portugal are currently the only two members that aren’t from the region.
While CAF has expanded quickly in recent years and now rivals other lenders such as the US-backed InterAmerican Development Bank, it’s seeking new backers that will provide the fresh capital needed to increase loans and improve links with other regions. headtopics.com
Diaz-Granados sees these institutions as complementary but said CAF can finance a broader set of projects than the IDB in the region because its decisions aren’t under threat of a US veto. The bank isn’t seeking to add the US to its ranks nor is the American government is willing to join CAF, he said.
“We have a fluid communication with them but they aren’t interested in CAF and in our case, we aren’t interested in the US either,” he said. “This is a piggy bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. (https://headtopics.com/ca/latin-american-bank-turns-to-asia-middle-east-for-fresh-capital-44999570)
