SAN JOSE, June 17 (Reuters) – The World Bank (WB) approved a $500 million loan to Costa Rica to support government economic recovery measures after the coronavirus pandemic.
The new loan will serve the government of the Central American country to strengthen family income protection programs and support for small and medium-sized businesses, the World Bank said in a statement on Friday.
The Costa Rican Finance Minister, Nogui Acosta, said that the country is overcoming the impact of the pandemic, “but adverse external conditions brought new challenges that we must address in terms of economic recovery and fiscal consolidation,” cited in the statement.
The economy would grow 3.3% in 2023, according to the projection of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, compared to the 4.3% expansion registered last year.
According to official data at the end of 2022, the most recent, in Costa Rica, 23% of the population, of 5.2 million people, was considered poor. The percentage did not change compared to 2021.
In 2021, the Costa Rican government sought a lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to face the crisis caused by the pandemic, which included a financing package of 1.778 million dollars over three years in exchange for austerity measures still in force.
As part of this program and another credit for 725 million dollars, an IMF technical mission agreed in April to disburse 527 million to Costa Rica after verifying that the fiscal goals in 2022 were met “with a comfortable margin.”
In March, the World Bank approved a disbursement of 160 million dollars to Costa Rica to strengthen its response capacity to natural threats. (Reporting by Alvaro Murillo, edited by Adriana Barrera)
Source: Ambito
