I.D.B. Invest Outlines Support for Private Sector

James P. Scriven

The private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, the IDB Invest, was also a part of the webcast discussion. C.E.O. James Scriven spoke about how they are engaging their partners during this pandemic and the level of support that they can offer the region:

James P. Scriven, C.E.O., I.D.B. Invest

“We have across the region over three hundred clients, in the Caribbean over thirty clients which we plan to give specific facilities to be able to cope with the crisis that they are dealing with. Second, we have five billion dollars available to help mitigate the economic impact of this crises through-out the region. It is not earmarked only for the region. But at least five hundred million dollars of that will be earmarked to the Caribbean. In addition to that, we are creating a very specific facility that is going to be approved by the board in the next ten days to earmark specific areas that are directly impacted in the crisis. I am talking about the health sector; education sector; the farming sector; the sectors that can help address the current crisis that we are going through. So, to sum up, we are a bank for development purposes can lend to most of the countries that we are connected to today. Secondly, we have a very long term view of development and as such are not worried or scared about the economic cycles that we are living through. We have a big counter-cyclical role. This is the time that these institutions step up to invest more rather than less. Areas that we will be looking for very closely, work in the trade sector where we understand that many of the trade partners that connect with the Caribbean are backing away. Supply chains, as we know the Caribbean is very connected to the rest of the work through global supply chains and we are going to work directly with that. Through financial institutions, address lack of financial services to SMEs; so working with a number of financial institutions to be able to channel money through them to be able to continue to lend to the SME sector.”