BID okays loan to boost tourism in Argentina’s Salta province

Authorities from both the Inter American Development Bank (BID) and the Argentina province of Salta signed a letter of intention for a $34.1 million loan aimed at shoring up an integrated development program for the tourist sector.

According to BID sources, the loan “will contribute to the province’s output development by making tourism its economic booster, by improving the social infrastructure and revamping the financial system all in the same breath.”

“The program will strengthen the region’s institutional capabilities to both promote and provide services, as well as to better the tourist infrastructure and recoup the cultural and historical heritage with a view to make the recent success of the local leisure industry grow on a steady and sustainable basis,” the report says.

The loan also seeks to streamline services linked to the basic infrastructure such as the treatment of cesspool waters, urban sewerage and solid wastes. Other actions are similarly being sketched out in order to reap bigger fiscal earnings and make significant headway in the financial and banking systems.

The BID loan will be endorsed by the national government.

The agreement was inked by BID chairman Enrique Iglesias and Salta governor Juan Carlos Romero at the financial institution’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.