Ecuadornews:
The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, announced on Wednesday a series of credits for more than 10,000 million dollars from international funding agencies to support the Government’s Prosperity Plan.
Moreno explained, in a televised message, that $ 6,000 million will come from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Latin American Reserve Fund and the the French Development Agency.
The remaining 4,200 million will come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an entity with which the previous government of Rafael Correa maintained a tense relationship.
The loans have been granted at interest rates that “do not exceed 5 percent” on average and with terms of “up to 30 years”, depending on each agency, Moreno said.
“We have agreed with the United Nations on its support to monitor that the resources of the State are destined, primarily, to social investment,” he said during his speech, aware of the criticisms that, for weeks, have been heard from opposition circles.
And he assured that the loans will be destined primarily “to the neediest”.
At the same time, he praised that thanks to the decisions of his Government, Ecuador is not “what Venezuela is today” and has saved dollarization and regained democracy.
The money, he said, will be used to create job opportunities for all citizens who do not find something stable, as well as to build more houses and more schools, and to strengthen the nation’s security.
“I’m not interested in power. I am interested in everyone’s welfare. I am interested in the present and future of Ecuador. I am interested in the country in which our children and grandchildren will live. The future of our elders “, justified the first president, who in the last year and a half has denounced a debt left by his predecessor of almost 70,000 million dollars.
Moreno acknowledged in that sense that his country has gone through difficult times due to the economic crisis it is going through, but he assured that the fact that these international organizations trust in the measures applied during his term shows that Ecuador is on the right path.
During the decade of Correa’s government (2007-2017), Quito accused the IMF of attacking the national sovereignty by imposing strong conditions to access its credits, which led it to suspend ties with that agency.
With the arrival of Moreno’s presidency in May 2017, Ecuador re-established its relations with the main international financial organizations, and an IMF mission visited the Andean country last year.
Last January, in which was the first participation of an Ecuadorian president in more than ten years, Moreno traveled to the Forum of Davos to meet, among others, with the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. (I)
