IDB to host regional trade and foreign ministers forum
WASHINGTON, CMC – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says it will host a regional trade and foreign ministers forum on the margins of the ninth Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles early next month.
The Summit of the Americas will take place during the period June 6-10 and the IDB said that its forum on June 7 will be the first of its kind in nearly 20 years and will focus on three central trade agenda items, namely strengthening value chains and attracting investment, sustainable trade and climate change, and digital economy.
The IDB said that the event will also be attended by chief executives from leading global companies to discuss investment and regional supply chains, as well as sustainable trade and climate change, and trade and the digital economy in the hemisphere.
It said the event aligns with Vision 2025, the IDB’s roadmap for accelerating inclusive, sustainable growth, including through better leveraging of the private sector.
The Washington-based financial institution said as the only international financial institution that is actively financing nearshoring, it aims to use the trade and investment forum as an opportunity to further help Latin America and the Caribbean seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase regional integration and participation in the current global realignment of supply chains.
“We are prioritising action and look forward to deepening our engagement so we can fully use the expanded nearshoring toolkit we developed to help countries and companies take advantage of the regionalisation of supply chains.
“This forum can serve as a bedrock for results. Forums like this, which unite the public and private sectors, reflect our vision for a truly 21st-century IDB. Now is the moment to capitalise on sectors that can jumpstart economies and mobilise critical private capital for co-financing and investment,” said IDB President, Mauricio Claver-Carone.
The IDB said that in gathering leading business executives alongside senior government officials, it seeks to expand the historic public-private collaboration it has fostered over the past year and support matchmaking to enable greater investment in key sectors across the region.
“This forum demonstrates the potential of the IDB’s new value proposition to build synergies between the public and private sectors that lead to economic growth and social inclusion,” the IDB said.
“We look forward to building on our diverse and ambitious initiatives, especially after what will undoubtedly be productive discussions with regional leaders at the ninth Summit of the Americas. While the upcoming Summit is taking place at an inflexion point in the region’s history, because of its high-stakes political backdrop and our institutional commitment to remain apolitical, we are carefully tailoring our activities in connection to the event,” said President Claver-Carone.
The IDB said it will continue to help the region combat climate change, create jobs, institutionalise equality, forge more transparent, digitised economies, improve healthcare systems, and invest in the kind of reliable, resilient regional supply chains needed to make the countries of the Americas stronger and more secure.
The bank said that Latin America and the Caribbean face both ongoing pandemic challenges and an unprecedented combination of global problems, including rampant inflation, rising interest rates, supply-chain bottlenecks, and the global impacts of war, including a growing food and energy crisis. Current forecasts indicate the region will grow less than three per cent this year. Even so, the IDB is confident that Latin America and the Caribbean can surpass expectations.
“I believe the region can prove the forecasters wrong and do something similar to what it did in 2021 when it grew nearly seven per cent. We are working for that outcome every day, guided by our mission of improving lives across the Americas,” Claver-Carone said.