The Caribbean is expected to benefit from a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) that will result in the coordination of project financing.

The MOU follows one signed in December 2004, which is due to expire at the end of this year.

According to the IDB, the agreement aims to optimise “the combination of EIB’s financial strength and its private sector orientation with IDB’s political reach and coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean and its capacity to identify and implement projects with both public and private partners”.

Projects in the energy and transport sector involving IDB and EIB financing are expected to be signed in the course of 2010.

“Our cooperation and co-financing with the EIB are in line with our collective objectives of supporting economic growth, build infrastructure with a solid environmental focus, foster private sector development and create employment opportunities,” IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno said.

EIB Vice-president Carlos Da Silva Costa said the MOU allows for an improved collaboration between IDB and EIB, which has already proved its usefulness during the last five years, achieving significant synergies between the respective functional advantages and regional specialities of the two institutions in order to provide a better support to the Latin American investment effort.

Under the previous Memorandum of Understanding, IDB and EIB have co-financed projects such as the Panama Canal Expansion, the Panama City and Bay Sanitation and the Nicaragua Power sector rehabilitation programme, of undoubted importance for the region.