Positive developments in regional integration agenda highlighted

Tegucigalpa, June 30, 2017. – Today, the Executive President of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Dr. Nick Rischbieth, participated in the XLIX Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Central American Integration System (SICA).

During his speech, Dr. Nick Rischbieth explained about CABEI’s evolution subsequent to amendments made to its Constitutive Agreement which will enable the Bank to achieve sustained growth in the coming years.

Dr. Rischbieth stated that, "The amendments to the constitutive agreement had almost immediate effects... starting in 2016 with the transformation of Belize’s special contributions into shares; in addition to Panama’s share capital increase in 2016 and the Dominican Republic’s in 2017, which led to the three countries receiving a status of non-founding regional members, thus complying with one of the main provisions of the new constitutive agreement, which guarantees equal treatment to all SICA countries that are in line with the its governance structure." 

Dr. Rischbieth added that, “In April of this year, the CABEI Board of Governors unanimously approved to accept Cuba as a non-regional member. We have already formulated and are in the process of approving a Central American-Caribbean Fund in order to join the cooperating community and finance the initiatives required to enable the interconnectivity that will make the integration of Central America and the Caribbean into a reality."

Noteworthy events involved in the process of incorporating new member countries into CABEI include a visit  made on March of this year by authorities of the Government of Korea as part of their due diligence process for entry into the CABEI share capital structure as a non-regional member.

For his part, Dr. Rischbieth noted the main regional programs developed by CABEI in the framework of the SICA regional agenda, such as the financing of SIEPAC; the preparation process of a Project to Increase Resilience to Climate Change in the Central American Dry Corridor and Arid Zones of the Dominican Republic; the approval of a Financial Program to promote the Regional Competitiveness and Sustainability Program for Tourism MSMEs (PROMITUR); the preparation of a Regional Productive Articulation Program for MSMEs in coordination with CENPROMYPE; the Bank’s financial contribution for the Customs Union between Guatemala and Honduras; and the FTA negotiation process with Korea, among other regional initiatives.