Asunción, Paraguay, November 5, 2012—
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) are training 26 bankers from Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay to improve their trade finance operations, reduce risks, and better serve small and medium businesses in their countries.
The participants
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representing 11 banks in Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay
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are engaging in a five-day training session in Asunción between November 5 and 9.
Through its Advisory Services, IFC provides banks and other financial institutions with training and support to upgrade their capacity to structure basic and complex trade-finance transactions and mitigate trade-related risks. These services aim to improve operational and technical skills within trade-finance offices and transfer current international best practices to local markets.
The training is part of IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program, established in 2005 to promote trade flows between emerging markets, increase developing countries’ share of global trade, and support the flow of goods and services between these countries. Since its inception, nearly 500 bankers from 20 countries have benefited from the training courses in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Through its Global Trade Finance Program, IFC is supporting increased trade in LAC,” said Georgina Baker, IFC’s Director for Global Trade and Supply-Chain Solutions. Providing training is an important part of the program’s efforts to help emerging-market banks provide trade finance to importers and exporters, particularly small and medium enterprises.”
IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program offers confirming banks partial or full guarantees on payment obligations in emerging markets for trade-related transactions, and its Advisory Services help local banks build their trade-finance capacity.
There are currently five issuing banks participating in the Global Trade Finance Program in Paraguay. The credit lines made available to these banks consist of a revolving amount of up to $110 million. Since 2008, 393 guarantees were issued for transactions with a total volume of more than $322 million.
During the last 3 fiscal years, about 30 percent of the total transaction volume of IFC’s operations in the Southern Cone consisted of transactions closed with Paraguayan banks under the Global Trade Finance Program.
IFC’s strategy in Paraguay focuses on seeking opportunities to engage the private sector, promote global trade, and provide advisory services to improve the country’s investment climate.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We help developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing investment, mobilizing capital in international financial markets, and providing advisory services to businesses and governments. In FY12, our investments reached an all-time high of more than $20 billion, leveraging the power of the private sector to create jobs, spark innovation, and tackle the world’s most pressing development challenges. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
.
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