MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

IDB approves 300 million dollars loan for north Argentina road network

The IDB loan is expected to benefit 325.000 people

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a 300 million dollars loan to finance a multiple-work road program aimed at improving the conditions of accessibility, efficiency, and safety of priority roads of Argentina’s Norte Grande Region’s provincial road network and at contributing to the area’s sustainable economic development.

The Norte Grande III Infrastructure Program envisions enhancing, rehabilitating, and improving road corridors connecting production centers with domestic and foreign markets as well as promoting investment sustainability through the incorporation of the financed works to the road-maintenance managing systems.

The first three works to be financed will be executed in the provinces of Formosa, Santiago del Estero, and Tucumán, and will benefit some 325,000 people. The number of beneficiaries will grow with works to be carried out in other provinces, including Misiones, Jujuy, and Catamarca.

Expected results include reducing traveling time and transportation costs, increasing average annual traffic, and improving the percentage of works with implemented safety measures.

This program complements the Norte Grande Infrastructure Road Programs I and II approved in 2007 and 2012, respectively. It also seeks to boost the area’s territorial and regional integration.

Its components include rehabilitation, improvement, and enhancement works for the provincial road corridors, among them horizontal and vertical demarcation and upgrading of pedestrian crossings. They also comprise safety moves such as improvements to road corridors geometry as well as training to the Provincial Road Directorates to help them carry out engineering projects’ safety road audits in order to improve their quality.

The 300 million IDB loan is for a 25-year term, with a 5-1/2-year grace period and at a LIBOR-based interest rate. Local counterpart financing will contribute 33.5 million to the program.