More than 3,000 Nicaraguan MSMEs have strengthened their businesses with CABEI's backing

Managua, August 29th, 2023.- In the last three years, since the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of 3,596 Nicaraguan micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) were able to sustainably boost and strengthen their businesses, as well as invest in the improvement of their productive units through access to soft resources from the Financial Sector Support Facility for MSME Financing, supported by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).

Among them, 15 producers and cattle ranchers from the department of Chontales, to whom CABEI has channeled US$100,000 through the Caja Rural Regional R.L. (COOCARUR) Savings and Loan Cooperative, resources that have supported their businesses. Such is the case of young producer Silvia Leonor Salgado Durán, who said: "as a woman, I feel empowered and grateful to Caja Rural, this new option with CABEI has benefited all of us as producers.”

Thus, through the MSME Support Facility in Nicaragua, US$92.2 million have been channeled to contribute to the adaptation, solvency and transformation of this sector. These actions are part of the Bank's strategic objectives, in line with the economic reactivation of its member countries.

For her part, COOCARUR's manager, Blanca Lidia Suárez, expressed her gratitude to CABEI: "For 17 years it has been one of the cooperative's best allies because of the accessibility of funds and low cost. COOCARUR is a cooperative that provides low-cost and accessible financing to small and medium-sized producers and integrates women and young producers with the intention of preserving the work done by their parents in livestock farming.”

Jerónimo Antonio Amador Argüello, a resident of the Gamalote district in the municipality of La Libertad, said that the financing has been very appropriate for his intensive grazing production system, because the low interest rates help him maximize resources on his plots of land.

In Nicaragua, through the Facility, which is part of CABEI's economic support and reactivation program in the face of COVID-19, 47,649 jobs have been preserved, making a significant contribution to boosting the country's economy.