IDB loans to be signed by June
>Siepac: IDB loans to be signed by June - Central America
>Monday, March 18, 2002 16:57 (GMT-0300) The Inter-American Development
>Bank (IDB) will sign loan contracts with six Central American countries by
>June for the construction of the Siepac power interconnection project,
>Siepac executive unit manager Teofilo de la Torre told BNamericas.
>Honduras' government signed the contract for its loan on Monday to finance
>construction of its stretch of the line. Costa Rica was the first country
>to do so, in February.
>"We estimate by June the six Central American countries will have signed
>their respective credits with the IDB and we can start building Siepac,
>which is progressing slowly but surely, and which, despite delays since
>the beginning of the project, should be operating in December 2006," de la
>Torre said.
>The IDB approved a US$320mn loan for Siepac, in an operation involving
>counterpart financing commitments on the part of the governments of the
>six countries.
>The company formed for construction of Siepac, EPL, is at the stage of
>internal organization and preparation prior to beginning work in 2H02, de
>la Torre said.
>The executive unit meanwhile is continuing its work of coordinating the
>project and is currently dealing with everything to do with the regulatory
>framework that will govern the interconnection, he said.
>The 1,880km Siepac line will interconnect Guatemala, El Salvador,
>Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The project also envisages the
>creation of a regional regulator for the new Central American electricity
>market, and a regional operator of the system and administrator of the
>electricity trading market.
>By Alejandro Tumayan
>BNamericas.com
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>Monti Aguirre
>Latin American Campaigns
>International Rivers Network
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